Post  Mortem 


[Photo,  Anderson. 

THE   EMPEROR  CHARLES   V. 
From  a  portrait  by  Titian  (Madrid,  Prado). 


[Frontispiece. 


Post   Mortem 

Essays,  Historical  and  Medical 

C.  MacLaurin 

M.B.C.M.,    F.R.C.S.E.,  LL.D. 

Lecturer  in  Clinical  Surgery 
University  of  Sydney,  etc. 


New  York  : 

George  H.  Doran  Company 


Made  and  Printed  in  Great  Britain  by  Butler  &  Tanner,  Frome  and  London 


IQfe 


Preface 

WHETHER  the  "  great  man"  has  had  any 
real  influence  on  the  world,  or  whether 
history  is  merely  a  matter  of  ideas  and  tendencies 
among  mankind,  are  still  questions  open  to  solu- 
tion ;  but  there  is  no  doubt  that  great  persons 
are  still  interesting  ;  and  it  is  the  aim  of  this 
series  of  essays  to  throw  such  light  upon  them 
as  is  possible  as  regards  their  physical  condi- 
tion ;  and  to  consider  how  far  their  actions 
were  influenced  by  their  health.  There  are 
many  remarkable  people  in  history  about  whom 
we  know  too  little  to  dogmatize,  though  we  may 
strongly  suspect  that  their  mental  and  physical 
conditions  were  abnormal  when  they  were  driven 
to  take  actions  which  have  passed  into  history  ; 
for  instances,  Mahomet  and  St.  Paul.  Such  I 
have  purposely  omitted.  But  there  were  far 
more  whose  actions  were  clearly  the  result  of 
their  state  of  health  ;  and  some  of  these  who 
happen  to  have  been  leaders  at  critical  epochs  I 
have  ventured  to  study  from  the  point  of  view 
of  a  doctor.  This  point  of  view  appears  to  have 
been  strangely  neglected  by  historians  and 
others.  If  the  background  against  which  it 

7 


PREFACE 

shows  its  heroes  and  heroines  should  appear 
unsentimental  and  harsh,  at  least  it  appears  to 
medical  opinion  as  probably  true ;  and  it  is  our 
duty  to  seek  Truth.  If  it  appears  to  assume  an 
iconoclastic  attitude  towards  many  ideals  I  am 
sorry,  and  can  only  wish  that  the  patina  cast 
upon  their  characters  were  more  sentimental 
and  beautiful. 

Jeanne  d'Arc  and  the  Emperor  Charles  V  were 
undoubtedly  heroic  figures  who  have  been  almost 
worshipped  by  many  millions  of  people ;  yet 
undoubtedly  they  were  human  and  subject  to 
the  unhappy  frailties  of  other  people.  This  in 
no  way  detracts  from  their  renown.  I  must 
apologize  for  treating  Don  Quixote  as  a  real  per- 
son ;  he  was  quite  as  much  a  living  individual  as 
anyone  in  history.  Through  his  glamour  we  can 
get  a  real  glimpse  of  the  character  of  Cervantes. 

In  Australia  we  have  no  access  to  the  original 
sources  of  European  history ;  we  must  rely  upon 
the  "  printed  word  "  as  it  appears  in  standard 
monographs  and  essays. 

I  owe  many  thanks  to  Miss  Kibble,  of  the 
research  department  of  the  Sydney  Public 
Library,  without  whose  help  this  work  could 
never  have  been  undertaken. 

SYDNEY,  1922. 

8 


Contents 

PAGE 

THE  CASE  OF  ANNE  BOLEYN  13 

THE  PROBLEM  OF  JEANNE  n'Anc  34 

THE  EMPRESS  THEODORA  65 

THE  EMPEROR  CHARLES  V  88 
DON  JOHN  OF  AUSTRIA,  CERVANTES,  AND  DON  QUIXOTE    114 

PHILIP  II ;  AND  THE  ARTERIOSCLEROSIS  OF  STATESMEN      144 

MB.  AND  MRS.  PEPYS  157 

EDWARD  GIBBON  180 

JEAN  PAUL  MARAT  191 

NAPOLEON  I  204 

BENVENUTO  CELLINI  226 

DEATH  232 


Illustrations 

The  Emperor  Charles  V  Frontispiece 

Mary  Tudor  Face  P-     l6 

The  Empress  Theodora  »        7* 

Perseus  and  the  Gorgon's  Head  „      228 


II 


The  Case  of  Anne  Boleyn 

THERE  is  something  Greek,  something  akin 
to  QEdipus  and  Thyestes,  in  the  tragedy 
of  Anne  Boleyn.  It  is  difficult  to  believe,  as  we 
read  it,  that  we  are  viewing  the  actions  of  real 
people  subject  to  passions  violent  indeed  yet 
common  to  those  of  mankind,  and  not  the 
creatures  of  a  nightmare.  Yet  I  believe  that 
the  conduct  of  the  three  protagonists,  Henry, 
Catherine,  and  Anne,  can  all  be  explained  if  we 
appreciate  the  facts  and  interpret  them  with  the 
aid  of  a  little  medical  knowledge  and  insight. 
Let  us  search  for  this  explanation.  Needless  to 
say  we  shall  not  get  it  in  the  strongly  Bowdlerized 
sketches  that  most  of  us  have  learnt  at  school ; 
it  is  a  pity  that  such  rubbish  should  be  taught, 
because  this  period  is  one  of  the  most  important 
in  English  history  ;  the  actors  played  vital  parts ; 
and  upon  the  drama  that  they  played  has  depended 
the  history  of  England  ever  since. 

In  considering  an  historical  drama  one  has  to 
remember  the  curtain  of  gauze  which  Time  has 
drawn  before  us,  and  to  allow  for  its  colour  and 
density.  In  the  case  of  Henry  VIII  and  his 
time,  though  the  actual  materials  are  enormous, 

13 


POST    MORTEM 

yet  everything  has  to  be  viewed  through  an  odium 
theologicum  that  is  unparalleled  since  the  days  of 
Theodora.  In  the  eyes  of  the  Catholics,  Henry 
was,  if  not  the  actual  devil  incarnate,  at  all 
events  the  next  thing ;  and  their  opinion  has 
survived  among  many  people  who  ought  to  know 
better  to  the  present  day.  Decidedly  we  must 
make  a  great  deal  of  allowance. 

Henry  succeeded  to  the  throne,  nineteen  years 
of  age,  handsome,  rather  free-living,  full  of  joie- 
de-vivre,  charming,  and  with  every  promise  of 
greatness  and  happiness.  He  died  at  fifty-five, 
unhappy,  worn  down  with  illness,  at  enmity  with 
his  people,  with  the  Church,  and  with  the  world 
in  general,  leaving  a  memory  in  the  popular  mind 
of  a  murderous  concupiscence  that  has  become  a 
byword.  About  the  time  that  he  was  a  young 
man,  syphilis,  which  is  supposed  to  have  been 
introduced  by  Columbus'  men,  ran  like  a  whirl- 
wind through  Europe.  Hardly  anyone  seems  to 
have  escaped,  and  it  was  said  that  even  the  Pope 
upon  the  throne  of  St.  Peter  went  the  way  of 
most  other  people,  though  it  is  possible  that 
this  accusation  was  as  unreliable  as  many  other 
accusations  against  the  popes.  Be  that  as  it  may, 
the  foundations  were  then  laid  for  that  syphili- 
zation  which  has  transformed  the  disease  into  its 
present  mildness.  It  is  impossible  to  doubt  that 

14 


CASE    OF    ANNE    BOLEYN 

Henry  contracted  it  in  his  youth * ;  the  evidence 
will  become  clear  to  any  doctor  as  we  proceed. 
The  first  act  of  his  reign  was  to  marry  for 
political  reasons  Catherine  of  Aragon,  who  was 
the  widow  of  his  elder  brother  Arthur.  She  was 
daughter  of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella  of  Spain,  and, 
though  far  from  beautiful,  proved  herself  to 
possess  a  great  and  noble  soul  and  a  courage  of 
well-tempered  steel.  The  English  people  took 
her  to  their  hearts,  and  when  unmerited  mis- 
fortune fell  upon  her  never  lost  the  love  they 
had  felt  for  her  when  she  was  a  happy  young 
woman.  Though  she  was  six  years  older  than 
Henry,  the  two  lived  happily  together  for  many 
years.  Seven  months  after  marriage  Catherine 
was  delivered  of  a  daughter,  still-born.  Eight 
months  later  she  had  a  son,  who  lived  three  days. 
Two  years  later  she  had  a  still-born  son.  Nine 
months  later  she  had  a  son,  who  died  in  early 
infancy,  and  eighteen  months  afterwards  the 
infant  was  born  who  was  to  live  to  be  Queen 
Mary.  Henry  was  intensely  disappointed,  and 
for  the  first  time  turned  against  his  wife.  It 

1  I  have  read  or  heard  that  one  of  the  charges  against  Cardinal 
Wolsey  was  that  he  had  given  the  King  syphilis  by  whispering 
in  his  ear.  The  nature  of  the  story  so  whispered  is  not  dis- 
closed, but  may  be  imagined.  But  the  proud  prelate  had  several 
perfectly  healthy  illegitimate  children,  and  on  the  whole  it  is 
probable  that  Henry  caught  the  disease  in  the  usual  way. 


POST    MORTEM 

was  all  important  to  produce  an  heir  to  the 
throne,  for  it  was  thought  that  no  woman  could 
rule  England.  No  woman  had  ever  ruled  Eng- 
land, save  only  Matilda,  and  her  precedent  was 
not  alluring.  So  Henry  longed  desperately  for 
a  son ;  nevertheless  as  the  little  Mary  grew  up— 
a  sickly  child — he  became  passionately  devoted 
to  her.  She  grew  up,  as  one  can  see  from  her 
well-known  portrait,  probably  an  hereditary  syphi- 
litic. For  a  time  Henry  had  thought  of  divorcing 
Catherine,  but  his  affection  for  Mary  probably 
turned  the  scale  in  her  mother's  favour.  Catherine 
had  several  more  miscarriages,  and  by  the  time 
she  was  forty-two  ceased  to  menstruate ;  it  became 
clear  that  she  would  have  no  more  children  and 
could  never  produce  an  heir  to  the  throne. 

During  these  years  Henry's  morals  had  been 
no  worse  than  those  of  any  other  prince  in  Europe ; 
certainly  better  than  Louis  XIV  and  XV,  who 
were  to  come  after  him,  or  Charles  II.  He  met 
Mary  Boleyn,  daughter  of  a  rich  London  mer- 
chant, and  made  her  his  mistress.  Later  on  he 
met  Anne  Boleyn,  her  sister,  a  girl  of  sixteen, 
and  fell  in  love.  We  have  a  very  good  descrip- 
tion of  her,  and  several  portraits.  She  was  of 
medium  stature,  not  handsome,  with  a  long 
neck,  wide  mouth,  bosom  "  not  much  raised," 
eyes  black  and  beautiful  and  a  knowledge  of  how 

16 


MARY  TUDOR. 
From  a  portrait  by  Moro  Antonio  (Madrid,  Prado). 


[Photo,  Anderson. 


[Face  p.  1 6. 


CASE    OF    ANNE    BOLEYN 

to  use  them.     Her  hair  was  long,  and  it  appears 
that  she  used  to  wear  it  long  and  flowing  in  the 
house.     It  was  not  so  very   long  since  Joan  of 
Arc  had  been  burnt    largely   because  she  went 
about  without  a  wimple,  and  Mistress  Anne's 
conduct  with  regard  to  her  hair  was  probably 
worse  in  those  days  than  for  a  girl  to  be  seen 
smoking    cigarettes    when    driving    a    motor-car 
to-day.     At  any  rate,  she  acquired  demerit  by 
it,  and  everybody  was  on  the  look-out  for  more 
serious  false  steps.     The  truth  seems  to  be — so 
far  as  one  can  ascertain  truth  from  reports  which, 
even  if  unprejudiced,  came  from  people  who  knew 
nothing  about  a  woman's  heart — that  she  was  a 
bold  and  ambitious  girl  who  laid  herself  out  to 
capture   Henry,    and   succeeded.     Mary   Boleyn 
was  thrust  aside,  and  Henry  paid  violent  court  in 
his  own  enormous  and  impassioned  way  to  Anne. 
We  have  some  of  his  love  letters ;  there  can  be 
no  doubt  of  his  sincerity,  or  that  his  love  for 
Anne  was,  while  it  lasted,  the  great  passion  of 
his   life.     Had   she   behaved   herself   she   might 
have  retained  that  love.     She  repulsed  him  for 
several  years,  and  we  can  see  the  idea  of  divorce 
gradually  growing  in  his  mind.     He  appealed  to 
Pope    Clement    VII    to    help    him.     Catherine 
defended  herself  bravely,  and  stirred  Europe  in 
her    cause.     The    Pope    hesitated,    crushed    be- 

17  B 


POST    MORTEM 

tween  the  hammer  and  the  anvil,  between  Henry 
and  the  Emperor  Charles  V.  Henry  discovered 
that  his  marriage  with  Catherine  had  come 
within  the  prohibited  degrees,  and  that  she 
had  never  been  his  wife  at  all.  It  was  a  matter 
of  doubt  then — and  I  believe  still  is — whether 
the  Pope's  dispensation  could  acquit  them  of 
mortal  sin.  Apparently  even  his  Holiness'  in- 
fluence would  not  have  been  sufficient  to  counter- 
balance the  crime  of  marrying  his  deceased 
brother's  widow ;  nevertheless  it  was  rather 
remarkable  that,  if  Henry  were  really  such  a 
stickler  for  the  forms  of  canon  law  as  he  now 
wished  to  make  out,  he  never  troubled  to  raise 
the  question  until  after  he  had  fallen  in  love  with 
some  one  else.  He  definitely  promised  Anne 
that  he  would  divorce  Catherine,  marry  Anne, 
and  make  her  Queen  of  England.  Secure  in  his 
promise,  Anne  yielded  to  her  lover,  seeing  radiant 
visions  of  glory  before  her.  How  foolish  would 
any  girl  be  who  let  slip  the  chance — nay,  the 
certainty — of  being  the  Queen !  Yet  she  was 
to  discover  that  even  queens  can  be  bitterly 
unhappy.  Anne  sprang  joyfully  into  the  un- 
known, as  many  a  girl  has  done  before  her  and 
since,  trusting  to  her  power  to  charm  her  lover ; 
and  became  pregnant.  Meanwhile  the  struggle 
for  the  divorce  proceeded,  the  Pope  swaying  this 

18 


CASE    OF    ANNE    BOLEYN 

way  and  that,  and  Catherine  defending  her 
honour  and  her  throne  with  splendid  courage. 
The  nurses  and  astrologers  declared  that  the 
foetus  was  a  son,  and  the  lovers,  mad  with  joy, 
were  married  in  secret,  divorce  or  no  divorce. 
The  obliging  Archbishop  Cranmer  pronounced 
that  the  marriage  with  Catherine  was  null  and 
void,  as  the  Pope  would  not  do  so. 

The  time  came  for  Anne  to  fulfil  her  promise 
and  provide  an  heir.  King  and  queen  antici- 
pated the  event  in  the  wildest  excitement.  There 
had  been  several  lovers'  quarrels,  which  had  been 
made  up  in  the  usual  manner ;  once  Henry  was 
heard  to  say  passionately  that  he  would  rather 
beg  his  bread  in  the  streets  than  desert  her.  Yet 
it  is  doubtful  whether  Anne  Boleyn  was  ever 
anything  more  than  an  ambitious  courtesan ; 
it  is  doubtful  whether  she  ever  felt  anything 
towards  him  but  her  natural  wish  to  be  queen.  In 
due  course  her  baby  was  born,  and  it  was  a  girl — 
the  girl  who  afterwards  became  Queen  Elizabeth. 

Henry's  disappointment  was  tragic,  and  for  the 
first  time  Anne  began  to  realize  the  terror  of  her 
position.  She  was  detested  by  the  people  and 
the  Court,  who  were  emphatically  on  the  side  of 
the  noble  woman  whom  she  had  supplanted.  She 
had  estranged  everybody  by  her  vain-glory  and 
arrogance  in  the  hour  of  her  triumph ;  and  it 

19 


POST    MORTEM 

began  to  be  whispered  that  even  if  her  own 
marriage  were  legal  while  Catherine  was  still 
alive,  yet  it  was  illegal  by  the  canon  law,  for  Mary 
Boleyn,  her  sister,  had  been  Henry's  wife  in  all 
but  name.  Canonically  speaking,  Henry  had 
done  no  better  by  marrying  her  than  by  marrying 
Catherine.  A  horrible  story  went  around  that 
he  had  been  familiar  with  her  mother  first,  and 
that  Anne  was  his  own  daughter,  and  moreover 
that  he  knew  it.  I  think  we  can  definitely  and 
at  once  put  this  aside  as  an  ecclesiastical  lie  ;  there 
is  absolutely  no  evidence  for  it  and  it  is  impossible 
to  conceive  two  persons  more  unlike  than  the 
little  lively  brunette  and  the  great  fresh-faced 
"  bluff  King  Hal."  Moreover,  Henry  denied 
the  story  absolutely,  and  whatever  else  he  was, 
he  was  a  man  who  was  never  afraid  to  tell  the 
truth.  Most  of  the  difficulties  in  understanding 
this  complex  period  of  our  history  disappear  if 
we  believe  Henry's  own  simple  statements ;  but 
these  suffer  from  the  incredulity  which 
Bismarck  found  three  hundred  years  later  when 
he  told  his  rivals  the  plain  unvarnished  truth. 
Let  us  anticipate  events  a  little  and  narrate 
the  death  of  Catherine,  which  took  place  in  1536, 
nearly  three  years  after  the  birth  of  Elizabeth. 
The  very  brief  and  sketchy  accounts  which  have 
survived  give  me  the  impression  that  she  died 

20 


CASE    OF    ANNE    BOLEYN 

of  uraemia,  but  no  definite  opinion  can  be  given. 
Henry,  of  course,  lay  under  the  immediate  charge 
of  having  poisoned  her,  but  I  do  not  know  that 
anybody  believed  it  very  seriously.  So  died  this 
unhappy  and  well-beloved  lady,  to  whom  life 
meant  little  but  a  series  of  bitter  misfortunes. 

After  Elizabeth  was  born  the  tragedy  began  to 
move  with  terrible  impetus  towards  its  climax. 
Henry  developed  an  intractable  ulcer  on  his 
thigh,  which  persisted  till  his  death,  and  fre- 
quently caused  him  severe  agony  whenever  the 
sinus  closed.  He  became  corpulent,  the  result 
of  over-eating  and  over-drinking.  He  had  been 
immensely  worried  for  years  over  the  affair  of 
Catherine ;  as  a  result  his  blood-pressure  seems 
to  have  risen,  so  that  he  was  affected  by  frightful 
headaches,  which  often  incapacitated  him  from 
work  for  days  together.  He  gave  up  the  athleti- 
cism which  had  distinguished  his  resplendent 
youth,  aged  rapidly,  and  became  a  harassed, 
violent,  ill-tempered  middle-aged  man — not  at 
all  the  sort  of  man  to  turn  into  a  cuckold. 

Yet  this  is  precisely  what  Anne  did.  Less 
than  a  month  after  Elizabeth  was  born — while 
she  was  still  in  the  puerperal  state — she  solicited 
Sir  Henry  Norreys,  the  most  intimate  friend  of 
the  King,  to  be  her  lover.  A  week  later,  on 
October  lyth,  1533,  he  yielded.  During  the 

21 


POST    MORTEM 

next  couple  of  years  Anne  seems  to  have  gone 
absolutely  out  of  her  senses,  if  the  contemporary 
stories  are  true.  She  seems  to  have  solicited 
several  prominent  men  of  the  Court,  and  even 
to  have  stooped  to  one  of  the  musicians ;  worst 
of  all,  it  was  said  that  she  had  committed  incest 
with  her  brother,  Lord  Rocheford.  Nor  did  she 
behave  with  the  ordinary  consideration  for  the 
feelings  of  others  that  might  have  brought  her 
hosts  of  friends — remember,  she  was  a  queen  ! — 
should  the  time  ever  come  when  she  should  need 
them.  It  does  not  require  any  great  amount  of 
civility  on  the  part  of  a  queen  to  win  friends. 
Arrogant  and  overbearing,  she  estranged  every- 
body at  Court ;  she  acted  like  a  beggar  on  horse- 
back, and  was  left  without  a  friend  in  the  place. 
And  she,  who  owed  her  husband  such  a  world, 
behaved  towards  him  with  the  same  arrogance 
as  she  showed  to  others,  and  in  addition  jealousy 
both  concerning  other  women  whom  she  feared 
and  concerning  the  King's  beloved  daughter, 
Mary.  She  spoke  to  the  Duke  of  Norfolk — her 
uncle  on  the  mother's  side,  and  one  of  the 
greatest  peers  of  the  realm — "  like  a  dog  "  ;  as 
he  turned  away  he  muttered  that  she  was  "  une 
grande  putaine."  The  most  polite  interpretation 
of  the  French  word  is  "  strumpet."  When  the 
Duke  used  such  a  word  to  his  own  niece,  what  sort 

22 


CASE    OF    ANNE    BOLEYN 

of  reputation  must  have  been  gathering  about 
her? 

She  had  two  more  miscarriages.  After  the 
second  the  King's  fury  flamed  out,  and  he  told 
her  plainly  that  he  deeply  regretted  having 
married  her.  He  must  have  indeed  been  sorry ; 
he  had  abandoned  a  good  woman  for  a  bad ;  for 
her  he  had  quarrelled  with  the  Pope  and  with 
many  of  his  subjects ;  whatever  conscience  he 
had  must  have  been  tormenting  him  :  all  these 
things  for  the  sake  of  an  heir,  which  seemed  as 
hopelessly  unprocurable  as  ever.  Both  the 
women  seemed  affected  by  some  fate  which 
condemned  them  to  perpetual  miscarriages ;  this 
fate,  of  course,  was  Henry's  own  syphilis,  even 
supposing  that  neither  wife  had  contracted  it 
independently.  (It  is  much  to  Anne  Boleyn's 
credit  or  discredit,  that  to  a  syphilitic  husband 
she  bore  a  daughter  so  vigorous  as  Elizabeth, 
though  Professor  Chamberlin  does  not  appear  to 
think  very  highly  of  her  health.) 

Meanwhile  all  sorts  of  scandalous  rumours 
were  flying  about ;  and  finally  a  maid  of  honour, 
whose  chastity  had  been  impugned,  told  a  Privy 
Councillor  that  no  doubt  she  herself  was  no 
better  than  she  should  be,  but  that  at  any  rate 
her  Majesty  Queen  Anne  was  far  worse.  The  Privy 
Councillor  related  this  to  Thomas  Cromwell ;  he, 

23 


POST    MORTEM 

the  rumours  being  thus  focussed,  dared  to  tell 
the  King.  Henry  changed  colour,  and  ordered 
a  secret  inquiry  to  be  held.  At  this  inquiry  the 
ladies  of  the  bedchamber  were  strictly  cross- 
examined,  but  nothing  was  allowed  to  happen  for 
a  few  days,  when  a  secret  commission  was  ap- 
pointed, consisting  of  the  Chancellor,  the  judges, 
Thomas  Cromwell,  and  other  members  of  the 
Council.  Sir  William  Brereton  was  first  sent 
to  the  Tower,  then  the  musician  Smeaton.  Next 
day  there  was  a  tournament  at  Greenwich,  in  the 
midst  of  which  Henry  suddenly  rose  and  left  the 
scene,  taking  Norreys  with  him.  Anne  was 
brought  before  the  Commission  next  day,  and 
committed  to  the  Tower,  where  she  found  that 
Sir  Francis  Weston  had  preceded  her.  Lord 
Rocheford,  her  brother,  joined  her  almost 
immediately  on  the  charge  of  incest. 

The  Grand  Juries  of  Kent  and  Middlesex 
returned  true  bills  on  the  cases,  and  the  Com- 
mission drew  up  an  indictment,  giving  names, 
places,  and  dates  for  every  alleged  act.  The 
four  commoners  were  put  on  trial  at  West- 
minster Hall.  Anne's  father,  Lord  Wiltshire, 
though  he  volunteered  to  sit,  was  excused  attend- 
ance, since  a  verdict  of  guilty  against  the  men 
would  necessarily  involve  his  daughter.  One 
may  read  this  either  way,  against  or  in  favour  of 

24 


CASE    OF    ANNE    BOLEYN 

Anne.  Either  Wiltshire  was  enraged  at  her 
folly,  and  merely  wished  to  end  her  disgrace ;  or 
it  may  be  that  he  thought  he  would  be  able  to 
sway  the  Court  in  her  favour.  Possibly  he  was 
afraid  of  the  King  and  wished  to  show  that  he 
at  least  was  on  his  royal  side,  however  badly 
Anne  may  have  behaved.  In  dealing  with  a 
harsh  and  tyrannical  man  like  Henry  VIII  it  is 
difficult  to  assess  human  motives,  and  one  prefers 
to  think  that  Wiltshire  was  trying  to  do  his  best 
for  his  daughter.  Smeaton  the  musician  con- 
fessed under  torture  ;  the  other  three  protested 
their  innocence,  but  were  found  guilty  and  were 
sentenced  to  death.  Thomas  Cromwell,  in  a 
letter,  said  that  the  evidence  was  so  abomin- 
able that  it  could  not  be  published.  Evidently 
the  Court  of  England  had  suddenly  become 
squeamish. 

Anne  was  next  brought  to  trial  before  twenty- 
five  peers  of  the  realm,  her  uncle  the  Duke  of 
Norfolk  being  in  the  chair.  Probably,  if  the 
story  just  related  were  true,  the  Duke's  influence 
would  not  be  exerted  very  strongly  in  her  favour, 
and  she  was  convicted  and  sentenced  to  be  hanged 
or  burnt  at  the  King's  pleasure ;  her  brother  was 
tried  separately  and  also  convicted.  It  is  said 
that  her  father  and  uncle  concurred  in  the  verdict ; 
they  may  have  been  afraid  of  their  own  heads, 

25 


POST    MORTEM 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  possible  that  Anne  was 
really  guilty ;  unfortunately  the  evidence  has 
perished.  The  five  men  were  executed  on  Tower 
Hill  in  the  presence  of  the  woman,  whose  death 
was  postponed  from  day  to  day.  In  the  mean- 
time Henry  procured  his  divorce  from  her,  while 
Anne,  in  a  state  of  violent  hysteria,  continuously 
protested  her  innocence.  On  the  night  before 
her  execution  she  said  that  the  people  would  call 
her  "  Queen  Anne  sans  tete,"  laughing  wildly  as 
she  spoke ;  if  one  pronounces  these  words  in  the 
French  manner,  without  verbal  accent,  they  form 
a  sort  of  jingle,  as  who  should  say  "  ta-ta-ta-ta  "  ; 
and  this  foolish  jingle  seems  to  have  run  in  her 
head,  as  she  kept  repeating  it  all  the  evening  ;  and 
she  placed  her  fingers  around  her  slender  neck — 
almost  her  only  beauty — saying  that  the  exe- 
cutioner would  have  little  trouble,  as  though  it 
were  a  great  joke.  These  things  were  put  to  the 
account  of  her  light  and  frivolous  nature,  and 
have  probably  weighed  heavily  with  posterity  in 
attempting  to  judge  her  case  ;  but  it  is  clear  that 
they  were  merely  manifestations  of  hysteria. 
Joan  of  Arc,  whose  character  was  probably  the 
direct  antithesis  of  Anne  Boleyn's,  laughed  when 
she  heard  the  news  of  her  reprieve.  Some  people 
think  she  laughed  ironically,  as  though  a  very 
simple  peasant-girl  could  be  ironical  if  she  tried. 

26 


CASE    OF    ANNE    BOLEYN 

Irony  is  a  quality  of  the  higher  intelligence. 
But  cannot  a  girl  be  allowed  to  laugh  hysterically 
for  joy  ?  Or  cannot  Anne  Boleyn  be  allowed  to 
laugh  hysterically  for  grief  and  terror  without 
being  called  light  and  frivolous  ?  So  little  did  her 
contemporaries  understand  the  human  heart.  A 
few  years  later  came  one  Shakespeare,  who  could 
have  told  King  Henry  differently ;  and  the 
extraordinary  burgeoning  forth  of  the  English 
intellect  in  William  Shakespeare  is  one  of  the 
most  wonderful  things  in  our  history.  Before 
the  century  had  terminated  in  which  Anne  Boleyn 
had  been  considered  light  and  frivolous  because 
she  had  laughed  in  the  shadow  of  the  block, 
Shakespeare  had  plumbed  the  depths  of  human 
nature. 

Anne  was  beheaded  on  May  I9th,  1536,  in  the 
Tower,  on  a  platform  covered  thickly  with  straw, 
in  which  lay  hidden  a  broadsword.  The  heads- 
man was  a  noted  expert  brought  over  specially 
from  St.  Omer,  and  he  stood  motionless  among 
the  gentlemen  onlookers  until  the  necessary 
preliminaries  had  been  completed.  Then,  Anne 
kneeling  in  prayer  and  her  back  being  turned 
towards  him,  he  stole  silently  forward,  seized  the 
sword  from  its  hiding-place,  and  severed  her 
slender  neck  at  a  blow.  As  she  had  predicted, 
he  had  little  trouble,  and  she  never  saw  either 

27 


POST    MORTEM 

her  executioner  or  the  sword  that  slew  her.1  Her 
body  and  severed  head  were  bundled  into  a  cask, 
and  were  buried  within  the  precincts  of  the  Tower ; 
and  Henry  threw  his  cap  into  the  air  for  joy. 
On  the  same  day  he  obtained  a  special  dispensation 
to  marry  Jane  Seymour.  He  married  her  next 
day. 

The  chief  authority  for  the  reign  of  Henry 
VIII  is  contained  in  the  Letters  and  Papers  of  the 
Reign  of  Henry  VIII,  edited  by  Brewer  and 
Gairdner.  This  gigantic  work,  containing  more 
than  20,000  closely  printed  pages,  is  probably  the 
greatest  monument  of  English  scholarship  ;  the 
prefaces  to  the  different  volumes  are  remarkable 
for  their  learning  and  delightful  literary  style. 
Froude's  history  is  charming  and  brilliant  as 
are  all  his  writings,  but  is  now  rather  out  of  date, 
and  is  marred  by  his  hero-worship  of  Henry  and 
his  strong  Protestant  bias.  He  sums  up  absolutely 
against  Anne,  and,  after  reading  the  letters  which 
he  publishes,  I  do  not  see  how  he  could  have  done 
anything  else.  He  believes  her  innocent  of  incest, 

JThey  really  seem  to  have  taken  some  little  pains  to  make 
the  death  of  the  King's  old  flame  as  little  terrible  as  possible. 
They  might  have  burnt  her  or  subjected  her  to  the  usual  grim 
preliminaries  of  the  scaffold.  Probably  they  did  this  not 
because  the  King  had  ever  loved  her,  but  because  she  was  a 
queen,  and  therefore  not  to  be  subjected  to  needless  infamy ; 
one  of  the  Lord's  anointed,  in  short. 

28 


CASE    OF    ANNE    BOLEYN 

however,  and  doubtless  he  is  right.  Let  us  acquit 
her  of  this  crime,  at  any  rate.  A.  F.  Pollard's 
Life  of  Henry  VIII  is  meticulously  accurate,  and 
is  charmingly  written ;  he  thinks  it  impossible 
that  the  juries  could  have  found  against  her  and 
the  court  have  convicted  without  the  strongest 
evidence,  which  has  not  survived.  P.  C.  Yorke 
sums  up  rather  against  her  in  the  Encyclopedia 
Britannic  a ;  but  S.  R.  Gardiner  thinks  the 
charges  too  horrible  to  be  believed  and  that 
probably  her  own  only  offence  was  that  she 
could  not  bear  a  son.  Professor  Gardiner  had 
evidently  seen  little  of  psychological  medicine, 
or  he  would  have  known  that  no  charge  is  too 
horrible  to  believe.  The  "  Unknown  Spaniard  " 
of  the  Chronicle  of  Henry  VIII  is  an  illiterate 
:ellow  enough,  but  no  doubt  of  Anne's  guilt 
appears  to  enter  his  artless  mind ;  he  probably 
represents  the  popular  contemporary  view.  He 
says  that  he  took  his  stand  in  the  ring  of  gentle- 
men who  witnessed  the  execution.  He  gives  an 
account  of  the  arrest  of  Sir  Thomas  Wyatt 
the  poet — the  first  English  sonneteer — and  the 
ipsissima  verba  of  a  letter  which  Wyatt  wrote  to 
Henry,  narrating  how  Anne  had  solicited  him 
even  before  her  marriage  in  circumstances  that 
rendered  her  solicitation  peculiarly  brazen  and 
shameless.  That  Henry  should  have  pardoned 

29 


POST    MORTEM 

him  seems  to  show  that  the  real  crime  of  Anne 
was  that  she  had  contaminated  the  blood  royal ; 
a  capital  offence  in  a  queen  in  almost  all  ages  and 
almost  every  country.  Before  she  became  a 
queen  Henry  was  probably  complaisant  enough 
to  Anne's  peccadilloes ;  but  afterwards — that  was 
altogether  different.  "  There's  a  divinity  doth 
hedge  "  a  queen  ! 

Lord  Herbert  of  Cherbury,  writing  seventy 
years  later,  narrates  the  ghastly  story  with  very 
little  feeling  one  way  or  the  other.  Apparently 
the  legend  of  Anne's  innocence  and  Henry's 
blood-lust  had  not  yet  arisen.  The  verdict  of 
any  given  historian  appears  to  depend  upon 
whether  he  favours  the  Protestants  or  the  Catho- 
lics. Speaking  as  a  doctor  with  very  little  religious 
preference  one  way  or  the  other,  the  following 
considerations  appeal  strongly  to  myself.  If 
Henry  wished  to  get  rid  of  a  barren  wife — barren 
through  his  own  syphilis ! — as  he  undoubtedly 
did,  then  Mark  Smeaton's  evidence  alone  was 
enough  to  hang  any  queen  in  history  from  Helen 
downward,  especially  if  taken  in  conjunction  with 
the  infamous  stories  related  by  the  "  Unknown 
Spaniard."  Credible  or  not,  these  stories  show 
the  reputation  that  attached  to  the  plain  little 
Protestant  girl  who  could  not  provide  an  heir 
to  the  throne — the  sort  of  reputation  which 

30 


CASE    OF    ANNE    BOLEYN 

mankind  usually  attaches  to  a  woman  who,  by 
unworthy  means,  has  attained  to  a  high  position. 
Why  should  the  King  and  Cromwell,  both 
exceedingly  able  men,  gratuitously  raise  the 
questions  of  incest  and  promiscuity  and  send  four 
innocent  men  to  their  deaths  absolutely  without 
reason  ?  Why  should  they  raise  all  the  tremendous 
family  ill-will  and  public  reprobation  which  such 
an  act  of  bloodthirsty  tyranny  would  have  caused  ? 
Stern  as  they  were  they  never  showed  any  sign 
of  mere  blood-lust  at  any  other  time ;  and  the 
facts  that  Anne's  father  and  uncle  both  appear  to 
have  concurred  in  the  verdict,  and  that,  except 
for  her  own  denial,  there  is  not  a  word  said  in  her 
favour,  seems  to  require  a  great  deal  of  explanation. 
We  can  thoroughly  explain  her  conduct  by 
supposing  that  she  was  afflicted  by  hysteria  and 
nymphomania.  There  are  plenty  of  accounts 
of  unhappy  women  whose  cases  are  parallel  to 
Anne's  in  the  works  of  Havelock-Ellis  and  Kisch. 
There  is  plenty  of  indubitable  evidence  that  she 
was  hysterical  and  unbalanced,  and  that  she 
passionately  longed  for  a  son  ;  and  it  is  simpler  to 
believe  her  the  victim  of  a  well-known  and 
common  disease  than  that  we  should  suppose 
the  leading  statesmen  of  England  and  nearly 
the  whole  of  its  peerage  suddenly  to  be  affected 
with  blood-lust.  It  has  been  suggested  that 

31 


POST    MORTEM 

Anne,  passionately  longing  for  a  son  and  terrified 
of  her  husband's  tyrannical  wrath,  acted  like  one 
of  Thomas  Hardy's  heroines  centuries  later  and 
tried  another  lover  in  the  hope  that  she  would 
gratify  her  own  and  Henry's  wishes.  This 
course  of  procedure  is  probably  not  so  uncommon 
as  some  husbands  imagine  and  would  satisfy  the 
questions  of  our  problem  but  for  Anne's  promis- 
cuity and  vehemence  in  solicitation.  If  her  sole 
object  in  soliciting  Norreys  was  to  provide  a 
son,  why  should  she  have  gone  from  man  to  man 
till  the  whole  Court  seems  to  have  been  ringing 
with  her  ill  fame  ? 

Her  spasms  of  violent  temper  after  her  marriage, 
her  fits  of  jealousy,  her  foolish  arrogance  and 
insolence  to  her  friends,  are  all  mental  signs 
which  go  with  nymphomania,  and  the  fact  that 
her  post-nuptial  incontinence  seems  to  have 
begun  while  she  was  still  in  the  puerperal  state 
after  the  birth  of  her  only  living  child  seems 
highly  significant.  It  is  not  uncommon  for 
sexual  desire  to  become  intolerable  in  nervous 
and  puerperal  women.  The  proper  place  for 
Anne  Boleyn  was  a  mental  hospital. 

Henry  VIII's  case,  along  with  those  of  his 
children,  deserve  a  paper  to  themselves.  Henry 
himself  died  of  neglected  arterio-sclerosis  just 
in  the  nick  of  time  to  save  the  lives  of  better  men 


CASE    OF    ANNE    BOLEYN 

from  the  executioner ;  Catherine  Parr,  who 
married  him  probably  in  order  to  nurse  him — it  is 
possible  that  she  was  really  fond  of  him  and  that 
there  was  even  then  something  attractive  about 
him — succeeded  in  outliving  him  by  a  remarkable 
effort  of  diplomatic  skill  and  courage,  though  had 
Henry  awakened  from  his  ursemic  stupor  prob- 
ably her  head  would  have  been  added  to  his 
collection.  On  the  whole,  one  cannot  avoid  the 
conclusion  that  his  conduct  to  his  wives  was  not 
all  his  fault.  They  seem  to  have  done  no  credit 
to  his  power  of  selection.  The  first  and  the 
last  appear  to  have  been  the  best,  considered  as 
women. 

Inexorable  Nemesis  had  avenged  Catherine. 
The  worry  of  the  divorce  left  her  husband  with 
an  arterial  tension  which,  added  to  the  royal 
temper,  caused  great  misery  to  England  and 
ultimately  death  to  himself ;  and  her  mean 
little  rival  lay  huddled  in  the  most  frightful 
dishonour  that  ever  befell  a  woman.  Decidedly 
there  is  something  Greek  in  the  complete  horror 
of  the  tragedy. 


33 


The  Problem  of  Jeanne  d'Arc 

IN  1410-12  France  was  in  the  most  dreadful 
condition  that  has  ever  affected  any  nation. 
For  nearly  eighty  years  England  had  been  at 
her  throat  in  a  quarrel  which  to  our  minds  simply 
exemplifies  the  difference  between  law  and 
justice ;  for  it  seems  that  the  King  of  England 
had  mediaeval  law  on  his  side,  though  to  our 
minds  no  justice ;  the  Black  Death  had  returned 
more  than  once  to  harass  those  whom  war  had 
spared ;  no  man  reaped  where  he  had  sown,  for 
his  crops  fell  into  the  hands  of  freebooters. 
Misery,  destitution,  and  superstition  were  man's 
bedfellows ;  and  the  French  mind  seemed  open 
to  receive  any  marvel  that  promised  relief  from 
its  intolerable  agony.  Into  this  land  of  terror 
was  born  a  little  maid  whose  mission  it  was  to 
right  the  wrongs  of  France ;  a  maiden  who  has 
remained,  through  all  the  vicissitudes  of  history, 
extraordinarily  fascinating,  yet  an  almost  in- 
soluble problem.  It  is  undeniable  that  she  has 
exercised  a  vast  influence  upon  mankind,  less  by 
her  actual  deeds  than  by  the  ideal  which  she  set 
up ;  an  ideal  of  courage,  simple  faith,  and  un- 
quenchable loyalty  which  has  inspired  both  her 

34 


PROBLEM    OF    JEANNE    D'ARC 

own  nation  and  the  nation  which  burnt  her. 
When  the  English  girls  cut  their  hair  short  in  the 
worst  time  of  the  war  x ;  when  the  French  soldiers 
retook  Fort  Douaumont  when  all  seemed  lost : 
these  things  were  done  in  the  name  of  Joan  of  Arc. 
The  actual  contemporary  sources  from  which 
we  draw  our  ideas  are  extraordinarily  few.  There 
is  of  course  the  report  of  the  trial  for  lapse  and 
relapse,  which  is  official  and  is  said  not  to  be 
garbled.  It  is  useful,  not  only  for  the  Maid's 
answers,  which  throw  a  good  deal  of  light  on  her 
mentality,  but  for  the  questions  asked,  which 
appear  to  give  an  idea  of  reports  that  seem  to 
have  been  floating  about  France  at  the  time. 

1  To  pause  for  a  moment,  probably  the  element  of  human 
sacrifice  may  have  entered  into  the  hair-cutting  episode,  as  it 
did  in  the  action  of  the  women  of  Carthage  during  the  last 
siege  ;  and  possibly  there  may  have  been  some  shamefaced 
reserve  in  the  attributing  of  the  fashion  to  the  example  of  an 
egregious  "  Buster  Brown  "  of  New  York.  To  my  own  memory 
the  fashion  was  first  called  either  the  "  Joan  of  Arc  "  cut  or 
the  "  Munitioner "  cut.  The  "  Buster  Brown  "  cut  came 
later,  and  seems  to  have  been  seized  upon  by  the  English  as 
an  excuse  against  showing  deep  feelings.  It  is  pleasanter  to 
think  that  Joan  of  Arc  was  really  at  that  time  in  the  hearts  of 
English  women  ;  the  cult  of  semi-worship  that  so  strengthened 
the  Allies  was  really  worship  of  the  qualities  which  mankind 
has  read  into  the  memory  of  the  little  maid  of  Domremy.  As 
she  raised  the  siege  of  Orleans,  so  her  memory  encouraged  the 
Allies  to  persevere  through  years  of  agony  nearly  as  great 
as  her  own. 

35 


POST    MORTEM 

The  only  thing  which  interested  her  judges  was 
whether  she  had  imperilled  her  immortal  soul 
by  heresy  or  witchcraft,  and  from  that  trial  we 
shall  get  few  or  no  indications  of  her  military 
career  or  physical  condition,  which  are  the 
things  that  most  interest  modern  men.  About 
twenty  years  after  her  execution  it  occurred  to 
her  king,  who  had  repaid  her  amazing  love  and 
self-sacrifice  with  neglect,  that  since  she  had  been 
burnt  as  a  witch  it  followed  that  he  must  owe 
his  crown  to  a  witch ;  moreover,  her  mother  and 
brother  had  been  appealing  to  him  to  clear  her 
memory,  for  they  could  not  bear  that  their  child 
and  sister  should  still  remain  under  a  cloud  of 
sorcery.  King  Charles  VII,  who  was  now  a 
great  man,  and  very  successful  as  kings  go,  there- 
fore ordered  the  case  to  be  reopened,  in  which 
course  he  ultimately  secured  the  assistance  of  the 
reigning  Pope.  Charles  could  not  restore  the 
Maid  to  life,  but  he  could  make  things  unpleasant 
for  the  friends  of  those  who  had  burned  her ; 
and  so  we  have  the  so-called  Rehabilitation  Trial, 
consisting  of  reports  and  opinions,  given  under 
oath,  from  many  people  who  had  known  her 
when  alive.  As  King  Charles  was  now  a  great 
man,  some  of  the  clerics  who  had  helped  to 
condemn  her  crowded  to  give  evidence  in  the 
poor  child's  favour,  attributing  the  miscarriage 


PROBLEM     OF     JEANNE     D'ARC 

of  justice  in  her  case  to  people  who  were  now 
dead  or  hopelessly  unpopular ;  some  friends  of 
her  childhood  came  forward  and  people  who  had 
known  her  at  the  time  of  her  glory  ;  and,  perhaps 
most  important,  some  of  her  old  comrades  in 
arms  rallied  round  her  memory.  We  thus  have 
a  fairly  complete  account  of  her  battles,  friend- 
ships, trials,  character,  and  death ;  if  we  read 
this  evidence  with  due  care,  remembering  that 
more  than  twenty  years  had  elapsed  and  the 
mentality  of  mediaeval  man,  we  may  take  some 
of  the  statements  at  their  face  value.  Otherwise 
there  is  absolutely  no  contemporary  evidence  of 
the  Maid ;  Anatole  France  has  pricked  the 
bubble  of  the  chroniclers  and  of  the  Journal  of 
the  siege  of  Orleans.  But  there  is  so  much  of 
pathological  interest  to  be  found  in  the  reports 
of  the  trials  that  I  need  no  excuse  for  a  brief  study 
of  them  in  that  respect. 

The  record  of  the  life  of  Jeanne  d'Arc  is  all 
too  short,  and  the  main  facts  are  not  in  dispute. 
It  is  the  interpretation  of  these  facts  that  is  in 
dispute.  She  was  born  on  January  6th,  1412  ; 
the  year  is  uncertain.  Probably  she  did  not 
know  herself.  In  the  summer  of  1424  she  saw 
a  great  light  on  her  right  hand  and  heard  a  voice 
telling  her  to  be  a  good  girl.  This  voice  she  knew 
to  be  the  voice  of  God.  Later  on  she  heard  the 

37 


POST    MORTEM 

voices  of  St.  Michael  the  Archangel,  of  St. 
Catherine,  and  of  St.  Margaret.  St.  Michael 
appeared  first,  and  warned  her  to  expect  the 
arrival  of  the  others,  who  came  in  due  course. 
All  three  were  to  be  her  constant  companions  for 
the  rest  of  her  life.  At  first  their  appearances  were 
irregular,  but  later  on  they  came  frequently,  especi- 
ally at  quiet  moments.  Sometimes,  when  there 
was  a  good  deal  of  noise  going  on,  they  appeared 
and  tried  to  tell  her  something,  but  she  could 
not  hear  what  they  said.  These  she  called  her 
Council,  or  her  Voices.  Occasionally  the  Lord  God 
spoke  to  her  himself;  Him  she  called  "Messire." 

As  Jeanne  grew  more  accustomed  to  her  heavenly 
visitors  they  came  in  great  numbers,  and  she  used 
to  see  vast  crowds  of  angels  descending  from  heaven 
to  her  little  garden.  She  said  nothing  to  anybody 
about  these  unusual  events,  but  grew  up  a  brood- 
ing and  intensely  religious  girl,  going  to  church  at 
every  possible  opportunity,  and  apparently  neg- 
lecting her  ordinary  duties  of  looking  after  her 
father's  sheep  and  cattle.  She  learned  to  sew  and 
knit,  to  say  her  Credo,  Paternoster,  and  Ave 
Maria ;  otherwise  she  was  absolutely  ignorant,  and 
very  simple  in  mind  and  honest.  She  was  dreamy 
and  shy  ;  nor  did  she.  ever  learn  to  read  or  write. 

Later  on  the  voices  told  her  to  go  into  France, 
and  God  would  help  her  to  drive  out  the  English. 

38 


PROBLEM    OF    JEANNE    D'ARC 

She  continually  appealed  to  her  father  that  he 
should  send  her  to  Vaucouleurs,  where  the  Sieur 
Robert  de  Baudricourt  would  espouse  her  cause. 
Ultimately  he  did  so;  and  at  first  Robert  laughed 
at  her.  He  was  no  saint ;  in  his  day  he  had 
ravaged  villages  with  the  best  noble  in  the  land ; 
and  he  was  not  convinced  that  Jeanne  was  really 
the  sent  of  God  that  she  claimed.  When  she 
returned  home  she  found  herself  the  butt  of 
Domremy ;  nine  months  later  she  ran  away  to 
Vaucouleurs  again,  and  found  Robert  more 
helpful.  He  had  for  some  time  felt  sympathy 
with  the  dauphin  Charles,  and  had  grown  to 
detest  the  English  and  Burgundians ;  and  he  now 
welcomed  the  supernatural  aid  which  Jeanne 
promised ;  she  repeated  vehemently  that  God 
had  sent  her  to  deliver  France,  and  that  she  had 
no  doubt  whatever  that  she  would  be  able  to 
raise  the  siege  of  Orleans,  which  was  then  being 
idly  invested  by  the  English. 

Robert  sent  her  to  the  Dauphin,  who  lay  at 
Chinon.  He  was  no  hero,  this  Dauphin,  but  a 
poverty-stricken  ugly  man,  with  spindle-shanks 
and  bulbous  nose,  untidy  and  careless  in  his  dress, 
and  forever  blown  this  way  and  that  by  the 
advice  of  those  around  him.  Weak,  and  intensely 
superstitious,  he  would  to-day  have  been  the 
prey  of  every  medium  who  cared  to  attack  him  ; 

39 


POST    MORTEM 

he  received  Jeanne  kindly,  and  ultimately  sent 
her  to  Poitiers  to  be  examined  as  to  possible  witch- 
craft by  a  great  number  of  learned  doctors  of  the 
Church,  who  could  be  relied  upon  to  discern  a 
witch  as  soon  as  anybody. 

She  was  deeply  offended  at  being  suspected  of 
witchcraft,  and  was  not  so  respectful  to  her 
judges  as  she  might  have  been ;  occasionally  she 
sulked,  and  sometimes  she  answered  the  reverend 
gentlemen  quite  saucily.  She  is  an  attractive 
and  very  human  little  figure  at  Poitiers  as  she 
moves  restlessly  upon  her  bench,  and  repeatedly 
tells  the  doctors  that  they  should  need  no  further 
sign  than  her  own  deeds ;  for  when  she  had 
relieved  Orleans  it  would  be  obvious  enough  that 
she  was  sent  directly  from  God.  At  Poitiers  she 
had  to  run  the  gauntlet  of  the  inevitable  jury  of 
matrons,  who  were  to  certify  to  her  virginity, 
because  it  was  well  known  that  women  lost  their 
holiness  when  they  lost  their  virginity.  The 
matrons  and  midwives  certified  that  she  was 
virgo  intacta ;  how  the  good  ladies  knew  is  not 
certain,  because  even  to-day,  with  all  our  know- 
ledge of  anatomy  and  physiology,  we  often  find 
it  difficult  to  be  assured  on  this  point.  However, 
there  can  be  little  doubt  that  they  were  correct ; 
probably  they  were  impressed  with  Jeanne's 
obvious  sincerity  and  purity  of  mind.  All 

40 


PROBLEM    OF    JEANNE    D'ARC 

•women  seem  to  have  loved  Jeanne,  which  is  a 
strong  point  in  her  favour.  The  spiritual 
examination  dragged  on  for  three  weeks ;  these 
poor  doctors  were  determined  not  to  let  a  witch 
slip  through  their  hands,  and  it  speaks  well  for 
their  patience  and  good  temper,  considering  how 
unmercifully  Jeanne  had  "  cheeked  "  them,  that 
they  ultimately  found  that  she  was  a  good  Christ- 
ian. Any  ordinary  man  would  have  seen  that 
at  once ;  but  these  gentlemen  knew  too  much 
about  the  wiles  of  the  Devil  to  be  so  easily 
influenced  ;  and  it  was  a  source  of  bitter  injustice 
to  Jeanne  at  her  real  and  serious  trial  for  her  life 
that  she  was  unable  to  produce  their  certificate. 
The  Dauphin  took  her  into  his  service  and 
provided  her  with  horse,  suit  of  armour,  and 
banner,  as  befitted  a  knight ;  also  maidservants 
to  act  propriety,  page-boy,  and  a  steward,  one 
Jean  d'Aulon.  All  that  we  hear  of  d'Aulon,  in 
whose  hands  the  honour  of  the  Maid  was  placed, 
is  to  his  credit.  A  witness  at  the  Rehabilitation 
Trial  said  that  he  was  the  wisest  and  bravest  man 
in  the  army.  We  shall  hear  more  of  him. 
Throughout  the  story,  whenever  he  comes  upon 
the  scene  we  seem  to  breathe  fresh  air.  He  was 
the  very  man  for  the  position,  brave,  simple- 
hearted,  and  passionately  loyal  to  Jeanne.  There 
is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  in  spite  of  his  close 


POST    MORTEM 

companionship  with  her  there  was  never  any 
romantic  or  other  such  feeling  between  them  ; 
he  said  so  definitely,  and  he  is  to  be  believed. 
His  honour  came  through  it  all  unstained ;  and 
he  let  himself  be  captured  with  her  rather  than 
desert  her.  It  is  clear  from  his  evidence  that  the 
personality  of  the  Maid  profoundly  affected  him. 
After  Jeanne's  death  he  was  ransomed,  and  was 
made  seneschal  of  Beaucaire. 

Jeanne  was  enormously  impressed  by  her 
banner,  which  was  made  by  a  Scotsman,  Hamish 
Power  by  name ;  she  described  it  at  her  trial. 

"  I  had  a  banner  of  white  cloth,  sprinkled  with 
lilies ;  the  world  was  painted  there,  with  an 
angel  on  each  side ;  above  them  were  the  words 
'  Jhesus  Maria.'  "  When  she  said  "  the  world  " 
she  meant  God  holding  the  world  up  in  one  hand 
and  blessing  it  with  the  other.  Later  on  she 
does  not  seem  very  certain  whether  "  Jhesus 
Maria  "  was  above  or  at  the  side  ;  but  she  is  very 
certain  that  she  was  tremendously  proud  of  the 
artistic  creation — yes,  "  forty  times  "  prouder 
of  her  banner  than  of  her  sword ;  even  though 
the  sword  was  from  St.  Catherine  herself,  and 
was  the  very  sword  of  Charles  Martel  centuries 
before.  When  the  priests  dug  it  up  without 
witnesses  and  rubbed  it  their  holy  power  cleansed 
it  immediately  of  the  rust  of  ages. 

42 


PROBLEM    OF    JEANNE    D'ARC 

When  she  arrived  at  Orleans  she  found  the 
English  carrying  on  a  leisurely  blockade  by  means 
of  a  series  of  forts  between  which  cattle  and  men 
could  enter  or  leave  the  city  at  will.  The  city 
was  defended  by  Jean  Dunois,  Bastard  of  Orleans. 
The  title  Bastard  implies  that  he  would  have  been 
Due  d'Orleans  only  that  he  had  the  misfortune 
to  be  born  of  the  wrong  mother.  There  have 
been  several  famous  bastards  in  history,  and  the 
kindly  morality  of  the  Middle  Ages  seems  to  have 
thought  little  the  worse  of  them  for  their  mis- 
fortune. It  is  only  fair  to  state  that  there  is 
some  doubt  as  to  whether  Jeanne  was  sent  in 
command  of  the  army,  or  the  army  in  command 
of  Jeanne ;  indeed,  all  through  her  story  it  is 
never  easy  to  be  certain  whether  she  was  actually 
in  command,  and  Anatole  France  looks  upon  her 
as  a  sort  of  military  mascotte  rather  than  a  soldier. 
Nor  has  Anatole  France  ever  been  properly 
answered.  Andrew  Lang  did  his  best,  as  Don 
Quixote  did  his  best  to  fight  the  windmills,  but 
Mr.  Lang  was  an  idealist  and  romanticist,  and 
could  not  defeat  the  laughing  irony  of  M.  France. 
Indeed,  what  answer  is  possible  ?  Anatole  France 
does  not  laugh  at  the  poor  little  Maid  ;  he  laughs 
through  her  at  modern  French  clericalism.  No- 
body with  a  heart  in  his  breast  could  laugh  at 
Jeanne  d'Arc  !  Anatole  France  simply  said  that 

43 


POST    MORTEM 

he  did  not  believe  the  things  which  Mr.  Lang 
said  that  he  believed ;  he  would  be  a  brave  man 
who  should  say  that  M.  France  is  wrong. 

When  she  reached  Orleans  a  new  spirit  at  once 
came  into  the  defenders,  just  as  a  new  spirit 
came  into  the  British  army  on  the  Somme  when 
the  tanks  first  went  forth  to  battle — a  spirit  of 
renewed  hope ;  God  had  sent  his  Maid  to  save 
the  right !  In  nine  days  of  mild  fighting,  in  which 
the  French  enormously  outnumbered  the  English, 
the  siege  was  raised.  The  French  lost  a  few  score 
men  ;  the  English  army  was  practically  destroyed. 

Next  Jeanne  persuaded  the  Dauphin  to  be 
crowned  at  Rheims,  which  was  the  ancient 
crowning-place  for  the  French  kings.  In  this 
ancient  cathedral,  in  whose  aisles  and  groined 
vaults  echoed  the  memories  and  glories  of  centur- 
ies, he  was  crowned  ;  his  followers  standing  around 
in  a  proud  assembly,  his  adoring  peasant-maid 
holding  her  grotesque  banner  over  his  head ; 
probably  the  most  extraordinary  scene  in  all 
history.  After  Jeanne  had  secured  the  crowning 
of  her  king,  ill  fortune  was  thenceforth  to  wait 
upon  her.  She  was  of  the  common  people,  and 
it  was  only  about  eighty  years  since  the  aristocracy 
had  shuddered  before  the  herd  during  the 
Jacquerie,  the  premonition  of  the  Revolution  of 
1789.  Class  feeling  ran  strongly,  and  the  nobles 

44 


PROBLEM    OF    JEANNE    D'ARC 

took  their  revenge ;  Jeanne,  having  no  ability 
whatever  beyond  her  implicit  faith  in  Heaven, 
lost  her  influence  both  with  the  Court  and  with 
the  people ;  whatever  she  tried  to  do  failed, 
and  she  was  finally  captured  in  a  sortie  from 
Compiegne  in  circumstances  which  do  not  exclude 
the  suspicion  that  she  was  deliberately  sacrificed. 
The  Burgundians  held  her  for  ransom,  and  locked 
her  up  in  the  Tower  of  Beaurevoir.  King  Charles 
VII  refused — or  at  any  rate  neglected — to  bid 
for  her ;  so  the  Burgundians  sold  her  to  the 
English.  When  she  heard  that  she  was  to  be 
given  into  the  hands  of  her  bitterest  enemies  she 
was  so  troubled  that  she  leaped  from  the  tower,  a 
height  of  sixty  or  seventy  feet,  and  was  miracu- 
lously saved  from  death  by  the  aid  of  her  friends — 
Saints  Margaret  and  Catherine.  It  is  easier  to 
believe  that  at  her  early  age — she  was  then  about 
nineteen  or  possibly  even  less — her  epiphyseal 
cartilages  had  not  ossified,  and  if  she  fell  on  soft 
ground  it  is  perfectly  credible  that  she  might  not 
receive  worse  than  a  severe  shock.  I  remember  a 
case  of  a  child  who  fell  from  a  height  of  thirty 
feet  on  to  hard  concrete,  which  it  struck  with 
its  head ;  an  hour  later  it  was  running  joyfully 
about  the  hospital  garden,  much  to  the  disgust 
of  an  anxious  charge-nurse.  It  is  difficult  to  kill 
a  young  person  by  a  fall — the  bones  and  muscles 

45 


POST    MORTEM 

yield  to  violent  impact,  and  life  is  not  destroyed. 
Jeanne  having  been  bought  by  the  English  they 
brought  her  to  trial  before  a  court  composed  of 
Pierre  Cauchon,  Lord  Bishop  of  Beauvais,  and  a 
varying  number  of  clerics ;  as  Anatole  France 
puts  it,  "  a  veritable  synod  "  ;  it  was  important 
to  condemn  not  only  the  witch  of  the  Armagnacs 
herself  but  also  the  viper  whom  she  had  been  able 
to  crown  King  of  France.  If  they  condemned 
her  for  witchcraft  they  condemned  all  her  works, 
including  King  Charles.  If  Charles  had  been  a 
clever  man  he  would  have  foreseen  such  a  result 
and  would  have  bought  her  from  the  Duke  of 
Burgundy  when  he  had  the  chance.  But  when 
she  was  once  in  the  iron  grip  of  the  English  he 
could  have  done  nothing.  It  was  too  late.  If 
he  had  off  ered  to  buy  her  the  English  would  have 
said  she  was  not  for  sale ;  if  he  had  moved  his 
tired  and  disheartened  army  they  would  have 
handed  her  over  to  the  University  of  Paris,  or 
perhaps  the  dead  body  of  one  more  peasant-girl 
would  have  been  found  in  the  Seine  below  Rouen, 
and  Cauchon  would  have  been  spared  the  trouble 
of  a  trial.  Therefore  we  may  spare  our  regrets 
on  the  score  of  some  at  least  of  King  Charles's 
ingratitudes.  It  is  possible  that  he  did  not  buy 
her  from  the  Burgundians  because  he  was  too 
stupid,  too  poor,  or  too  parsimonious ;  it  is  more 


PROBLEM    OF    JEANNE    D'ARC 

likely  that  his  courtiers  and  himself  began  to 
believe  that  her  success  was  so  great  that  it  could 
not  be  explained  by  mortal  means,  and  that  there 
must  be  something  in  the  witchcraft  story  after 
all.  It  could  not  have  been  a  pleasant  thing  for 
the  French  aristocrats  to  find  that  when  a  little 
maid  from  Domremy  came  to  help  the  common 
people,  these  scum  of  the  earth  suddenly  began 
to  fight  as  they  had  not  fought  for  generations. 
Fully  to  understand  what  happened  we  must 
remember  that  it  was  not  very  long  since  the 
Jacquerie,  and  that  the  aristocratic  survivors  had 
left  to  their  sons  tales  of  unutterable  horrors. 

However,  Jeanne  was  put  on  her  trial  for  witch- 
craft, and  after  a  long  and  apparently  hesitating 
process — for  there  had  been  grave  doubts  raised 
as  to  the  legality  of  the  whole  thing — she  was 
condemned  to  death.  Just  before  the  Bishop  had 
finished  his  reading  of  the  sentence  she  burst  into 
tears  and  recanted,  when  she  really  understood 
that  they  were  even  then  preparing  the  cart  to 
take  her  to  the  stake.  She  said  herself,  in  words 
which  cannot  possibly  be  misunderstood,  that 
she  recanted  "  for  fear  of  the  fire." 

The  sentence  of  the  court  was  then  amended ; 
instead  of  being  burned  she  was  to  be  held  in 
prison  on  bread  and  water  and  to  wear  woman's 
clothes.  She  herself  thought  that  she  was  to  be 

47 


POST    MORTEM 

put  into  an  ecclesiastical  prison  and  be  kept  in 
the  charge  of  women,  but  there  is  nothing  to  be 
found  of  this  in  the  official  report  of  the  first 
trial.  As  she  had  been  wearing  men's  clothes  by 
direct  command  of  God  her  sin  in  recanting  began 
to  loom  enormous  before  her  during  the  night ; 
she  had  forsaken  her  God  even  as  Peter  had  for- 
saken Jesus  Christ  in  the  hour  of  his  need,  and 
hell-fire  would  be  her  portion — a  fire  ten 
thousand  times  worse  than  anything  that  the 
executioner  could  devise  for  her.  She  got  up 
in  the  morning  and  threw  aside  the  pretty  dress 
which  the  Duchess  of  Bedford  had  procured  for 
her — all  women  loved  Jeanne  d'Arc — and  put 
on  her  war-worn  suit  of  male  clothing.  The 
English  soldiers  who  guarded  her  immediately 
spread  abroad  the  bruit  that  Jeanne  had  relapsed, 
and  she  was  brought  to  trial  for  this  contumacious 
offence  against  the  Holy  Church.  The  second  trial 
was  short  and  to  the  point ;  she  tried  to  show  that 
her  jailers  had  not  kept  faith  with  her,  but  her 
pleadings  were  brushed  aside,  and  finally  she  gave 
the  responsio  mortifera — the  fatal  answer — which 
legalized  the  long  attempts  to  murder  her.  Thus 
spoke  she  :  "  God  hath  sent  me  word  by  St. 
Catherine  and  St.  Margaret  of  the'  great  pity  it 
is,  this  treason  to  which  I  have  consented  to 
abjure  and  save  my  life  !  I  have  damned  myself 


PROBLEM    OF    JEANNE    D'ARC 

to  save  my  life  !  Before  last  Thursday  my  Voices 
did  indeed  tell  me  what  I  should  do  and  what  I 
did  then  on  that  day.  When  I  was  on  the  scaf- 
fold on  Thursday  my  Voices  said  to  me  : '  Answer 
him  boldly,  this  preacher  !  '  And  in  truth  he  is  a 
false  preacher ;  he  reproached  me  with  many 
things  I  never  did.  If  I  said  that  God  had  not 
sent  me  I  should  damn  myself,  for  it  is  true  that 
God  has  sent  me  ;  my  Voices  have  said  to  me  since 
Thursday  :  '  Thou  hast  done  great  evil  in  de- 
claring that  what  thou  hast  done  was  wrong.'  All 
I  said  and  revoked  I  said  for  fear  of  the  fire." 

To  me  this  is  the  most  poignant  thing  in  the 
whole  trial,  which  I  have  read  with  a  frightful 
interest  many  times.  It  seems  to  bring  home 
the  pathos  of  the  poor  struggling  child,  and  her 
blind  faith  in  things  which  could  not  help  her  in 
her  hour  of  sore  distress. 

Jules  Quicherat  published  a  very  complete 
edition  of  the  Trial  in  1840,  which  has  been  the 
basis  for  all  the  accounts  of  Jeanne  d'Arc  that 
have  appeared  since.  An  English  translation 
was  published  some  years  ago  which  professed 
to  be  complete  and  to  omit  nothing  of  import- 
ance. But  this  work  was  edited  in  a  fashion  so 
vehemently  on  Jeanne's  side,  with  no  apparent 
attempt  to  ascertain  the  exact  truth  of  the  judg- 
ments, that  I  ventured  to  compare  it  with 

49  D 


POST    MORTEM 

Quicherat,  and  I  have  found  some  omissions  which 
to  the  translator,  as  a  layman,  may  have  seemed 
unimportant,  but  which,  to  a  doctor,  seem  of 
absolutely  vital  importance  in  considering 
the  truth  about  the  Maid.  These  omissions 
are  marked  in  the  English  by  a  row  of  three  dots, 
which  might  be  considered  to  mark  an  omission, 
—but  on  the  other  hand  might  not.  Probably 
the  translator  considered  them  too  indecent, 
too  earthly,  too  physiological,  to  be  introduced 
in  connexion  with  the  Maid  of  God.  But  Jeanne 
had  a  body,  which  was  subject  to  the  same 
peculiarities  and  abnormalities  as  the  bodies  of 
other  people ;  and  upon  the  peculiarities  of  her 
physiology  depended  the  peculiarities  of  her  mind. 

Jean  d'Aulon,  her  steward  and  loyal  admirer, 
said  definitely  in  the  Rehabilitation  Trial,  in 
1456  :— 

"Qu'il  oy  dire  a  plusiers  femmes,  qui  ladicte 
Pucelle  ont  veue  par  plusiers  foiz  nues,  et  sceue 
de  ses  secretz,  que  oncques  n'avoit  eu  la  secret 
maladie  de  femmes  et  que  jamais  nul  n'en  peut 
rien  cognoistre  ou  appercevoir  par  ses  habille- 
ments,  ne  aultrement." 

I  leave  this  unpleasantly  frank  statement  in 
the  original  Old  French,  merely  remarking  that  it 
means  that  Jeanne  never  menstruated.  D'Aulon 
must  have  had  plenty  of  opportunities  for  knowing 


PROBLEM    OF    JEANNE    D'ARC 

this,  in  his  position  as  steward  of  her  household 
in  the  field.  He  guards  himself  from  innuendo 
by  saying  that  several  women  had  told  him. 
Jeanne's  failing  to  become  mature  must  have 
been  the  topic  of  amazed  conversation  among  all 
the  women  of  her  neighbourhood,  and  no  doubt 
she  herself  took  it  as  a  sign  from  God  that  she 
was  to  remain  virgin.  It  is  especially  significant 
that  she  first  heard  her  Voices  when  she  was  about 
thirteen  years  of  age,  at  the  very  time  that  she 
should  have  begun  to  menstruate ;  and  that  at 
first  they  did  not  come  regularly,  but  came  at 
intervals,  just  as  menstruation  itself  often  begins. 
Some  months  later  she  was  informed  by  the 
Voices  that  she  was  to  remain  virgin,  and  thereby 
would  she  save  France,  in  accordance  with  a 
prophecy  that  a  woman  should  ruin  France,  and 
a  virgin  should  save  it.  Is  it  not  probable  that 
the  idea  of  virginity  must  have  been  growing  in 
her  mind  from  the  time  when  she  first  realized 
that  she  was  not  to  be  as  other  women  ?  Probably 
the  delusion  as  to  the  Voices  first  began  as  a  sort 
of  vicarious  menstruation ;  probably  it  recurred 
when  menstruation  should  have  reappeared ; 
we  can  put  the  idea  of  virginity  into  the  jargon 
of  psycho-analysis  by  saying  that  Jeanne  had 
well-marked  "  repression  of  the  sex-complex." 
The  mighty  forces  which  should  have  manifested 

51 


POST    MORTEM 

themselves   in   normal  menstruation   manifested 

themselves  in  her  furious  religious  zeal  and  her 

Voices.     Repression  of   the  sex-complex   is   like 

locking  up  a  giant  in  a  cellar ;  sooner  or  later  he 

may  destroy  the  whole  house.     He   ended  by 

driving  Jeanne  d'Arc  to  the  stake.     That  was  a 

nobler  fate  than  befalls  some  girls,  whom  the 

same  giant  drives  to  the  streets ;  nobler,  because 

Jeanne  the  peasant  was  of  essentially  noble  stock. 

Her  mother  was   Isabel  Romee — the   "  Romed 

woman  " — the  woman  who  had  had  sufficient 

religious  fervour  to  make  the  Jjng  and  dangerous 

pilgrimage  to  Rome  that  she  might  acquire  the 

merit  of  seeing  the  Holy  Father ;  Jeanne  herself 

made  a  still  more  dangerous  pilgrimage,  which  has 

won  for  her  the  love  of  mankind  at  the  cost  of  her 

bodily  anguish.    Madame  her  mother  saved  her 

own  soul  by  her  pilgrimage,  and  bore  an  heroic 

daughter;  Jeanne  saved  France  by  her  courage  and 

devotion  to  her  idea  of  God.     And  this  would 

have  been  impossible  had  she  not  suffered  from 

repression  of  the  sex-complex   and  seen  visions 

therefore. 

Another  remarkable  piece  of  evidence  has  been 
omitted  from  the  English  translation.  It  was  given 
by  the  Demoiselle  Marguerite  la  Thoroulde,  who 
had  taken  Jeanne  to  the  baths  and  seen  her  un- 
clothed. Madame  la  Thoroulde  said,  in  the  Latin 

52 


PROBLEM    OF    JEANNE    D'ARC 

translation  of  the  Rehabilitation  Trial  which  has 
survived  :  "  Quod  cum  pluries  vidit  in  balneo  et 
stuphis  [sweating-bath]  et,  ut  percipere  potuit, 
credit  ipse  fore  virginem." 

That  is  to  say,  she  saw  her  naked  in  the  baths 
and  could  see  that  she  was  a  virgin  !  What  on 
earth  did  the  good  lady  think  that  a  virgin  would 
look  like  ?  Did  she  think  that  because  Jeanne 
did  not  look  like  a  stout  French  matron  she 
must  therefore  be  a  virgin  ?  Or  did  she  see  a 
strong  and  boyish  form,  with  little  development 
of  hips  and  bust,  which  she  thought  must  be 
nothing  else  but  that  of  a  virgin  ?  That  is  the 
explanation  that  occurs  to  me ;  and  probably 
it  also  explains  Jeanne's  idea  that  by  wearing  men's 
clothes  she  would  render  herself  less  attractive  to 
the  mediaeval  soldiery  among  whom  her  lot  was 
to  be  cast.  An  ordinary  buxom  young  woman 
would  certainly  not  be  less  attractive  because  she 
displayed  her  figure  in  doublet  and  hose ;  Rosa- 
lind is  none  the  less  winsome  when  she  acts  the 
boy ;  and  I  should  have  thought  that  Jeanne, 
by  wearing  men's  clothes,  would  simply  have 
proclaimed  to  her  male  companions  that  she  was 
a  very  woman.  But  if  the  idea  be  correct  that 
she  was  shaped  like  a  boy,  with  little  feminine 
development,  the  whole  mystery  is  at  once  solved. 
It  is  to  be  remembered  that  we  know  absolutely 

53 


POST    MORTEM 

nothing  about  Jeanne's  appearance  1 ;  the  only 
credible  hint  we  have  is  that  she  had  a  gentle  voice. 
In  the  Rehabilitation  Trial  several  of  her  com- 
panions in  arms  swore  that  she  had  had  no  sexual 
attraction  for  them.  It  is  quaint  to  read  the 
evidence  of  these  respectable  middle-aged  gentle- 
men that  in  their  hot  and  lusty  youth  they  had 
once  upon  a  time  met  at  least  one  young  girl 
after  whom  they  had  not  lusted ;  they  seem  to 
consider  that  the  fact  proved  that  she  must 
have  come  from  God.  Anatole  France  makes 
great  play  with  them,  but  it  would  appear  that 

1  We  can  see  from  the  statues  of  Jeanne  d'Arc  how  near  akin 
are  the  sex-complex  and  the  art-complex.  I  do  not  refer  to 
the  innumerable  pretty  statues  scattered  throughout  the  French 
churches,  which  are  merely  ideal  portraits  of  sainted  women. 
The  magnificent  equestrian  statue  by  Fremiet  in  the  Place  des 
Pyramides,  Paris,  is  a  portrait  of  a  plump  little  French  peasant- 
girl  trying  to  look  fierce,  and  succeeding  about  as  well  as  Audrey 
might  if  she  tried  to  play  Lady  Macbeth.  But  it  is  essentially 
female,  and,  in  my  idea  of  Jeanne  d'Arc,  is  therefore  wrong, 
for  we  really  know  nothing  about  her  beyond  what  we  read  in 
the  trials.  Even  more  female  is  the  statue  of  her  by  Romaneill 
in  the  Melbourne  Art  Gallery,  in  which  the  artist  has  actually 
depicted  the  corslet  as  curved  to  accommodate  moderate-sized 
breasts,  a  thing  which  would  probably  have  shocked  Jeanne 
herself,  for  she  wished  to  make  herself  sexually  unattractive. 
The  face,  though  common,  is  probably  accurate  in  that  it 
depicts  her  expression  as  saintly.  No  doubt  when  she  was 
listening  to  her  Voices  she  did  look  dreamy  and  ethereal.  But 
we  have  no  authority  for  believing  that  she  was  in  the  slightest 
degree  beautiful — if  anything,  she  was  probably  rather  the  reverse. 

54 


PROBLEM    OF    JEANNE    D'ARC 

his  ingenuity  is  in  this  direction  misplaced. 
Is  it  not  possible  that  Jeanne  was  unattractive  to 
men  because  she  was  immature — that  she  never 
became  more  than  a  child  in  mind  and  body  ? 
Even  mediaeval  soldiery  would  not  lust  after  a 
child,  especially  a  child  whom  they  firmly  believed 
to  have  come  straight  from  God  !  It  must  be 
remembered  that  to  half  of  her  world  Jeanne  was 
unspeakably  sacred ;  to  the  other  half  she  was 
undeniably  a  most  frightful  witch.  Even  the 
executioner  would  not  imperil  his  immortal  soul 
by  touching  her.  It  was  the  custom  to  spare  a 
woman  the  anguish  of  the  fire,  by  smothering 
her,  or  rendering  her  unconscious  by  suddenly 
compressing  her  carotids  with  a  rope  before  the 
flames  leaped  around  her.  But  Jeanne  was  far 
too  wicked  for  anybody  to  touch  in  this  merciful 
office  ;  they  had  to  let  her  die  unaided  ;  and 
afterwards,  so  wicked  was  her  heart,  they  had  to 
rescue  it  from  the  ashes  and  throw  it  into  the 
Seine.  Is  it  conceivable  that  men  who  thought 
thus  would  have  ventured  hell-fire  by  making 
love  to  her  ?  Yet  more — it  is  quite  possible  that 
she  had  no  bodily  charms  whatever ;  we  know 
nothing  of  her  appearance.  The  story  that  she 
was  charming  and  beautiful  is  simply  sentimental 
legend.  Indeed,  it  is  difficult  not  to  become 
sentimental  over  Jeanne  d'Arc. 

55 


POST    MORTEM 

A  noteworthy  feature  in  her  character  was  her 
Puritanism.  She  prohibited  her  soldiers  from 
consorting  with  the  prostitutes  that  followed  the 
army ;  sometimes  she  even  forced  them  to  marry 
these  women.  Naturally  the  soldiers  objected 
most  strongly,  and  in  the  end  this  was  one  of 
the  causes  that  led  to  her  downfall.  Jeanne  used 
to  run  after  the  prohibited  girls  and  strike  them 
with  the  flat  of  her  sword ;  in  one  case  the  girl 
was  killed.  In  another  the  sword  broke,  and 
King  Charles  asked,  very  sensibly,  "  Would  not 
a  stick  have  done  quite  as  well  ?  "  This  is 
believed  by  some  people  to  have  been  the  very 
sword  of  Charles  Martel  which  the  priests  had 
found  for  her  at  St.  Catherine's  command,  and 
naturally  the  soldiers,  deprived  of  their  female 
companions,  wondered  what  sort  of  a  holy  sword 
could  it  have  been  which  could  not  even  stand 
the  smiting  of  a  prostitute  ?  When  people 
suffer  from  repression  of  the  sex-complex  the 
trouble  may  show  itself  either  by  constant  indirect 
attempts  to  find  favour  in  the  eyes  of  individuals 
of  the  opposite  sex,  or  sometimes  by  actually 
forbidding  all  sexual  matters ;  Puritanism  in 
sexual  affairs  is  often  an  indication  that  all  is  not 
quite  well  with  a  woman's  subconscious  mind ; 
nor  can  one  confine  this  generalization  to  one 
sex.  It  is  not  for  one  moment  to  be  thought 

56 


PROBLEM    OF    JEANNE    D'ARC 

that  Jeanne  ever  had  the  slightest  idea  of  what 
was  the  matter  with  her  ;  the  whole  of  her  delu- 
sions and  Puritanism  were  to  her  quite  conscious 
and  real ;  the  only  thing  that  she  did  not  know 
was  that  her  delusions  were  entirely  subjective — 
that  her  Voices  had  no  existence  outside  her  own 
mind.  Her  frantic  belief  in  them  led  her  to  an 
heroic  career  and  to  the  stake.  She  did  not  con- 
sciously repress  her  sex ;  Nature  did  that  for  her. 

Women  who  never  menstruate  are  not  uncom- 
mon ;  most  gynaecologists  see  a  few.  Though 
they  are  sometimes  normal  in  their  sexual  feelings — 
sometimes  indeed  they  are  even  nymphomaniacs 
or  very  nearly  so — yet  they  seldom  marry,  for  they 
know  themselves  to  be  sterile,  and,  after  all,  most 
women  seem  to  know  at  the  bottom  of  their  hearts 
that  the  purpose  of  women  is  to  produce  children. 

But  there  is  still  more  of  psychological  interest 
to  be  gained  from  a  careful  reading  of  the  first 
trial.  It  is  possible  to  see  how  Jeanne's  unstable 
nervous  system  reacted  to  the  long  agony.  We 
had  better,  in  order  to  be  fair,  make  quite  certain 
why  she  was  burned.  These  are  the  words 
uttered  by  the  good  Bishop  of  Beauvais  as  he 
sentenced  her  for  the  last  time  : — 

"  Thou  hast  been  on  the  subject  of  thy  pre- 
tended divine  revelations  and  apparitions  lying, 
seducing,  pernicious,  presumptuous,  lightly  be- 

57 


POST    MORTEM 

lieving,  rash,  superstitious,  a  divineress  and 
blasphemer  towards  God  and  the  Saints,  a  des- 
piser  of  God  Himself  in  His  sacraments ;  a 
prevaricator  of  the  Divine  Law,  of  sacred  doctrine 
and  of  ecclesiastical  sanctions ;  seditious,  cruel, 
apostate,  schismatic,  erring  on  many  points 
of  our  Faith,  and  by  these  means  rashly  guilty 
towards  God  and  Holy  Church." 

This  appalling  f  ulmination,  summed  up,  appears 
to  mean — if  it  means  anything — that  she  believed 
that  she  was  under  the  direct  command  of  God 
to  wear  man's  clothes.  To  this  she  could  only 
answer  that  what  she  had  done  she  had  done  by 
His  direct  orders. 

Theologians  have  said  that  her  answers  at  the 
trial  were  so  clever  that  they  must  have  been 
directly  inspired ;  but  it  is  difficult  to  see  any 
sign  of  such  cleverness.  To  me  her  character 
stands  out  absolutely  clearly  defined  from  the 
very  beginning  of  the  six  weeks'  agony ;  she  is  a 
very  simple,  direct,  and  superstitious  child  strug- 
gling vainly  in  the  meshes  of  a  net  spread  for 
her  by  ecclesiastical  politicians  who  were  deter- 
mined to  sacrifice  her  to  serve  the  ends  of  brutal 
masters.  She  had  all  a  child's  simple  cunning ; 
when  the  Bishop  asked  her  to  repeat  her  Pater- 
noster she  answered  that  she  would  gladly  do  so 
if  he  himself  would  confess  her.  She  thought 

58 


PROBLEM    OF    JEANNE    D'ARC 

that  if  he  confessed  her  he  might  have  pity  on 
her,  or,  at  least,  that  he  would  be  bound  to  send 
her  to  Heaven,  because  she  knew  how  great  was 
the  influence  wielded  by  a  Bishop  ;  she  thought 
that  she  might  tempt  him  to  hear  her  in  the 
secrets  of  the  confessional  if  she  promised  to 
repeat  her  Paternoster  to  him  !  Poor  child — she 
little  knew  what  was  at  the  bottom  of  the  trial. 

She  sometimes  childishly  boasted.  When  she 
was  asked  if  she  could  sew,  she  answered  that  she 
feared  no  woman  in  Rouen  at  the  sewing ;  just 
so  might  answer  any  immature  girl  of  her  years 
to-day.  She  sometimes  childishly  threatened ; 
she  told  the  Bishop  that  he  was  running  a  great 
risk  in  charging  her.  She  had  delusions  of  sight, 
smell,  touch,  and  hearing.  She  said  that  the  faces 
of  Saints  Catherine  and  Margaret  were  adorned 
with  beautiful  crowns,  very  rich  and  precious,  that 
the  saints  smelled  with  a  sweet  savour,  that  she 
had  kissed  them,  that  they  spoke  to  her. 

There  was  a  touch  of  epigram  about  the  girl, 
too.  In  speaking  of  her  banner  at  Rheims,  she 
said :  "  It  had  been  through  the  hardships — it 
were  well  that  it  should  share  the  glory."  And 
again,  when  the  judges  asked  her  to  what  she 
attributed  her  success,  she  answered,  "  I  said  to 
my  followers :  *  Go  ye  in  boldly  against  the 
English,'  and  I  went  myself"  The  girl  who  said 

59 


POST    MORTEM 

that  could  hardly  have  been  a  mere  military 
mascotte.  Yet,  in  admitting  so  much,  one  does 
not  admit  that  she  may  have  been  a  sort  of  Ama- 
zon. As  the  desperation  of  her  position  grew 
upon  her  she  began  to  suffer  more  and  more  from 
her  delusions ;  while  she  lay  in  her  dungeon 
waiting  for  the  fatal  cart  she  told  a  young  friar, 
Brother  Martin  Ladvenu,  that  her  spirits  came 
to  her  in  great  numbers  and  of  the  smallest  size. 
When  despair  finally  seized  upon  her  she  told 
"  the  venerable  and  discreet  Maitre  Pierre 
Maurice,  Professor  of  Theology,"  that  the  angels 
really  had  appeared  to  her — good  or  bad,  they 
really  had  appeared — in  the  form  of  very  minute 
things l ;  that  she  now  knew  that  they  had  deceived 
her.  Her  brain  wearied  by  her  long  trial  of 
strength  with  the  Bishop,  common-sense  re-asserted 
its  sway,  and  she  realized — the  truth  !  Too  late  ! 
When  she  was  listening  to  her  sermon  on  the  scaffold 
in  front  of  the  fuel  destined  to  consume  her,  she 
broke  down  and  knelt  at  the  preacher's  knees,  weep- 
ing and  praying  until  the  English  soldiers  called 
out  to  ask  if  she  meant  to  keep  them  there  for  their 
dinner ;  it  is  pleasing  to  know  that  one  of  them 
broke  his  lance  into  two  pieces,  which  he  tied  into 

1 1  hate  to  suggest  that  these  specks  before  the  eyes  may  have 
been  the  result  of  touemia  from  the  intestine  induced  by  con- 
finement and  terror. 

60 


PROBLEM    OF    JEANNE    D'ARC 

the  form  of  a  cross  and  held  it  up  to  her  in  the 
smoke  that  was  already  beginning  to  arise  about  her. 

Her  last  thoughts  we  can  never  know  ;  her  last 
word  was  the  blessed  name  of  Jesus,  which  she 
repeated  several  times.  In  public — though  she 
had  told  Pierre  Maurice  in  private  that  she  had 
"  learned  to  know  that  her  spirits  had  deceived 
her  " — she  always  maintained  that  she  had  both 
seen  and  believed  them  because  they  came  from 
God ;  her  courage  was  amazing,  both  physical 
and  moral.  She  was  twice  wounded,  but  she 
said  that  she  always  carried  her  standard  so  that 
she  would  never  have  to  kill  anybody — and  that 
in  truth  she  had  never  killed  anybody. 

Her  extraordinary  accomplishment  was  due  to 
the  unbounded  superstition  of  the  French  com- 
mon people,  who  at  first  believed  in  her  implicitly  ; 
it  was  Napoleon,  a  French  general,  who  said  that 
in  war  the  moral  is  to  the  spiritual  as  three  is 
to  one  ;  our  Lord  said,  "  By  faith  ye  shall  move 
mountains  "  ;  and  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that 
she  went  to  Orleans  with  powerful  reinforcements 
which  she  herself  estimated  at  about  ten  to  twelve 
thousand  men.  This  superstition  of  the  French 
was  more  than  equalled  by  the  superstition  of 
the  English,  who  looked  upon  her  as  a  most 
terrifying  witch  :  one  witness  at  the  Rehabilita- 
tion Trial  said  that  the  English  were  a  very 

61 


POST    MORTEM 

superstitious  nation,  so  they  must  have  been 
pretty  bad.  Indeed,  most  of  the  witnesses  at 
that  trial  seem  to  have  been  very  superstitious ; 
one  must  examine  their  evidence  with  care  lest  one 
suddenly  finds  that  one  is  assisting  at  a  miracle. 
She  seems  to  have  been  hot-tempered  and 
emphatic  in  her  speech,  with  a  certain  tang  of 
rough  humour  such  as  would  be  natural  in  a 
peasant  girl.  A  notary  once  questioned  the  truth 
of  something  she  said  at  her  trial ;  on  inquiry  it 
was  found  that  she  had  been  perfectly  accurate ; 
Jeanne  "  rejoiced,  saying  to  Boisguillaume  that 
if  he  made  mistakes  again  she  would  pull  his 
ears."  Once  during  the  trial  she  was  taken  ill 
with  vomiting,  apparently  caused  by  fish-poison- 
ing, that  followed  after  she  had  eaten  of  some 
carp  sent  her  by  the  Bishop.  Maitre  d'Estivet, 
the  promoter  of  the  trial,  said  to  her,  c  Thou 
paillarde  ! '  (an  abusive  term),  '  thou  hast  been 
eating  sprats  and  other  unwholesomeness ! '  She 
answered  that  she  had  not ;  and  then  she  and 
d'Estivet  exchanged  many  abusive  words.  The 
two  doctors  of  medicine  who  treated  her  for  this 
illness  gave  evidence,  and  it  is  pleasing  to  see 
that  they  seem  to  have  been  able  to  rationalize 
a  trifle  more  about  her  than  most  of  her  con- 
temporaries. But,  taken  all  through,  her  evi- 
dence gives  the  impression  of  being  exceedingly 

62 


PROBLEM   OF    JEANNE   D'ARC 

simple  and  straightforward — just  the  sort  of 
thing  to  be  expected  from  a  child. 

It  is  noteworthy  that  a  great  many  witnesses 
at  the  Rehabilitation  Trial  swore  that  she  was 
"  simple."  Did  they  mean  that  she  was  half- 
witted ?  Probably  not.  More  probably  it  was 
true  that  she  always  wanted  to  spare  her  enemies, 
when,  in  accordance  with  the  custom  of  the  Hun- 
dred Years'  War,  she  should  rather  have  held  them 
for  ransom  if  they  had  been  noble  or  slain  them 
if  they  had  been  poor  men.  To  the  ordinary  brutal 
mediaeval  soldiery  such  conduct  would  appear  in- 
sane. Possibly,  of  course,  the  term  "simple"  might 
have  been  used  in  opposition  to  the  term  "gentle." 

May  I  be  allowed  to  give  a  vignette  of  Jeanne 
going  to  the  burning,  compiled  from  the  evidence 
of  many  onlookers  given  at  the  Rehabilitation 
Trial  ?  She  assumed  no  martyresque  imperturb- 
ability ;  she  did  not  hold  her  head  high  in  the 
haughty  belief  that  she  was  right  and  the  rest 
of  the  world  wrong,  as  a  martyr  should  properly 
do.  She  wept  bitterly  as  she  walked  to  the  fatal 
cart  from  the  prison-doors ;  her  head  was 
shaven ;  she  wore  woman's  dress ;  her  face  was 
swollen  and  distorted,  her  eyes  ran  tears,  her  sobs 
shook  her  body,  her  wails  moved  the  hearts  of 
the  onlookers.  The  French  wept  for  sympathy, 
the  English  laughed  for  joy.  It  was  a  very  human 

63 


POST    MORTEM 

child  who  went  to  her  death  on  May  3oth,  1431. 
She  was  nineteen  years  of  age — according  to 
some  accounts,  twenty-one — and,  unknown  to 
herself,  she  had  changed  the  face  of  history. 


The  Empress  Theodora 

THIS  famous  woman  has  been  the  subject 
of  one  of  the  bitterest  controversies  in 
history ;  and,  while  it  is  impossible  to  speak 
fully  about  her,  it  is  certain  that  she  was  a  woman 
of  remarkable  beauty,  character,  and  historical 
position.  For  nearly  a  thousand  years  after  her 
death  she  was  looked  upon  as  an  ordinary — if  un- 
usually able — Byzantine  princess,  wife  of  Justinian 
the  lawgiver,  who  was  one  of  the  ablest  of  the  later 
Roman  Emperors ;  but  in  1623  the  manuscript  was 
discovered  in  the  Vatican  of  a  secret  history, 
purporting  to  have  been  written  by  Procopius, 
which  threw  a  new  and  amazing  light  on  her  career. 
Procopius — or  whoever  wrote  this  most  scur- 
rilous history — states  that  the  great  Empress 
in  early  youth  was  an  actress,  daughter  of  a 
bear-keeper,  and  that  she  had  sold  tickets  in  the 
theatre ;  her  youth  had  been  disgustingly  pro- 
fligate :  he  narrates  a  series  of  stories  concerning 
her  which  cannot  be  printed  in  modern  English. 
The  worst  of  these  go  to  show  that  she  was  an 
ordinary  type  of  Oriental  prostitute,  to  whom 
the  word  "  unnatural,"  as  applied  to  vice,  had 
no  meaning.  The  least  discreditable  is  that  the 

65  E 


POST    MORTEM 

girl  who  was  to  be  Empress  had  danced  nearly 
naked  on  the  stage — she  is  not  the  only  girl 
who  has  done  this,  and  not  on  the  stage  either. 
She  had  not  even  the  distinction  of  being  a 
good  dancer,  but  acquired  fame  through  the  wild 
abandon  and  indecency  with  which  she  performed. 
At  about  the  age  of  twenty  she  married — when 
she  had  already  had  a  son — the  grave  and  stately 
Justinian :  "  the  man  who  had  never  been 
young,"  who  was  so  great  and  learned  that  it 
was  well  known  that  he  could  be  seen  of  nights 
walking  about  the  streets  carrying  his  head  in  a 
tray  like  John  the  Baptist.  When  he  fell  a  victim 
to  Theodora's  wiles  he  was  about  forty  years  of 
age.  The  marriage  was  bitterly  opposed  by 
his  mother  and  aunts,  but  they  are  said  to  have 
relented  when  they  met  her,  and  even  had  a 
special  law  passed  to  legalize  the  marriage  of 
the  heir  to  the  throne  with  a  woman  of  ignoble 
birth ;  and,  after  the  death  of  Justin,  Theodora 
duly  succeeded  to  the  leadership  of  the  proudest 
court  in  Europe.  This  may  be  true ;  but  it 
does  not  sound  like  the  actions  of  a  mother  and 
old  aunts.  One  would  have  thought  that  a 
convenient  bowstring  or  sack  in  the  Bosphorus 
would  have  been  the  more  usual  course. 

So  far  we  have  nothing  to  go  by  but  the  state- 
ments of  one  man ;    the  greatest  historian  of 

66 


THE    EMPRESS    THEODORA 

his  time,  to  be  sure — if  we  can  be  certain  that 
he  wrote  the  book.  Von  Ranke,  himself  a  very 
great  critical  historian,  says  flatly  that  Procopius 
never  wrote  it ;  that  it  is  simply  a  collection  of 
dirty  stories  current  about  other  women  long 
afterwards.  The  Roman  Empire  seems  to  have 
been  a  great  hotbed  for  filthy  tales  about  the 
Imperial  despots :  one  has  only  to  remember 
Suetonius,  from  whose  lively  pages  most  of  our 
doubtless  erroneous  views  concerning  the  Palatine 
"  goings  on  "  are  derived  ;  and  to  recall  the  foul 
stories  told  about  Julius  Caesar  himself,  who  was 
probably  no  worse  than  the  average  young  officer 
of  his  time ;  and  of  the  last  years  of  Tiberius, 
who  was  probably  a  great  deal  better  than  the 
average.  Those  of  us  who  can  cast  their  memories 
back  for  a  few  years  can  doubtless  recall  an  instance 
of  scurrilous  libel  upon  a  great  personage  of  the 
British  Empire,  which  cast  discredit  not  on  the 
gentleman  libelled  but  upon  the  rascal  who 
spread  the  libel  abroad.  It  is  one  of  the  penalties 
of  Empire  that  the  wearer  of  the  Imperial  crown 
must  always  be  the  subject  of  libels  against 
which  he  has  no  protection  but  in  the  loyal 
friendship  of  his  subjects.  Even  Queen  Victoria 
was  once  called  "  Mrs.  Melbourne,"  though 
probably  even  the  fanatic  who  howled  it  did  not 
believe  that  there  was  any  truth  in  his  insinuation. 


POST    MORTEM 

And  Procopius  did  not  have  the  courage  to 
publish  his  libels,  but  preferred  to  leave  to 
posterity  the  task  of  finding  out  how  dirty  was 
Procopius'  mind.  Probably  he  would  not  have 
lived  very  long  had  Theodora  discovered  what  he 
really  thought  of  her.  He  was  wise  in  his  genera- 
tion, and  had  ever  the  example  of  blind  Belisarius 
before  him  to  teach  him  to  walk  cautiously. 

Demidour  in  1887,  Mallet  in  1889,  and  Bury 
also  in  1889,  have  once  more  reviewed  the  evi- 
dence. The  two  first-mentioned  go  very  fully 
into  it,  and  sum  up  gallantly  in  Theodora's 
favour  ;  but  Bury  is  not  so  sure.  Gibbon,  having 
duly  warned  us  of  Procopius'  malignity,  proceeds 
slyly  to  tell  some  of  the  most  printable  of  the 
indecent  stories.  Gibbon  is  seldom  very  far 
wrong  in  his  judgments,  and  evidently  had  very 
little  doubt  in  his  own  mind  about  Theodora's 
guilt.  Joseph  Maccabe  goes  over  it  all  again, 
and  "  regretfully  "  believes  everything  bad  about 
her.  Edward  Foord  says,  in  effect,  that  suppos- 
ing the  stories  were  all  true,  which  he  does  not 
appear  to  believe,  and  that  she  had  thrown  her 
cap  over  the  windmills  when  she  was  a  girl — 
well,  she  more  than  made  up  for  it  all  when  she 
became  Empress.  After  all,  it  depends  upon 
how  far  we  can  believe  Procopius ;  and  that 
again  depends  upon  how  far  we  can  bring  our- 

68 


THE    EMPRESS    THEODORA 

selves  to  believe  that  an  exceedingly  pretty  little 
Empress  can  once  upon  a  time  have  been  a  fille  de 
joie.  That  in  its  turn  depends  upon  how  far  each 
individual  man  is  susceptible  to  female  beauty. 
If  she  had  been  a  prostitute  it  makes  her  career 
as  Empress  almost  miraculous ;  it  is  the  most 
extraordinary  instance  on  record  of  "  living  a 
thing  down,"  and  speaks  volumes  for  her  charm 
and  strength  of  personality. 

She  lived  in  the  midst  of  most  furious  theo- 
logical strife.  Christianity  was  still  a  com- 
paratively new  religion,  even  if  we  accept  the 
traditional  chronology  of  the  early  world ;  and 
in  her  time  the  experts  had  not  yet  settled  what 
were  its  tenets.  The  only  thing  that  was  per- 
fectly clear  to  each  theological  expert  was  that 
if  you  did  not  agree  with  his  own  particular 
belief  you  were  eternally  damned,  and  that  it  was 
his  duty  to  put  you  out  of  your  sin  immediately 
by  cutting  your  throat  lest  you  should  inveigle 
some  other  foolish  fellows  into  the  broad  path 
that  leadeth  to  destruction.  Theodora  was  a 
Monophysite — that  is  to  say,  she  believed  that 
Christ  had  only  one  soul,  whereas  it  was  well 
known  to  the  experts  that  He  had  two.  Nothing 
could  be  too  dreadful  for  the  miscreants  who 
believed  otherwise.  It  was  gleefully  narrated 
how  Nestorius,  who  had  started  the  abominable 


POST    MORTEM 

doctrine  of  Monophysm,  had  his  tongue  eaten 
by  worms — that  is,  died  of  cancer  of  the  tongue  ; 
and  it  is  not  incredible  that  Procopius,  who  was  a 
Synodist  or  Othodox  believer,  may  have  invented 
the  libels  and  secretly  written  them  down  in  order 
to  show  the  world  of  after  days  what  sort  of 
monster  his  heretical  Empress  really  was,  wear 
she  never  so  many  gorgeous  ropes  of  pearls  in  her 
Imperial  panoply.  It  is  difficult  to  place  any 
bounds  to  theological  hatred — or  to  human 
credulity  for  that  matter.  The  whole  question 
of  the  nature  of  Christ  was  settled  by  the  Sixth 
(Ecumenical  Council  about  a  hundred  and  fifty 
years  later,  when  it  was  finally  decided  that 
Christ  had  two  natures,  or  souls,  or  wills — how- 
ever we  interpret  the  Greek  word  ports' — each 
separate  and  indivisible  in  one  body.  This,  and 
the  Holy  Trinity,  are  still,  I  understand,  part 
of  Christian  theology,  and  appear  to  be  equally 
comprehensible  to  the  ordinary  scientific  man. 

But  it  is  difficult  to  get  over  a  tradition  of  the 
eleventh  century — that  is  to  say,  six  hundred 
years  before  Procopius'  Annals  saw  the  light — 
that  Justinian  married  "  Theodora  of  the 
Brothel."  Although  Mallet  showed  that  Pro- 
copius had  strong  personal  reasons  for  libelling 
his  Empress,  one  cannot  help  feeling  that  there 
must  be  something  in  the  stories  after  all. 

70 


THE    EMPRESS    THEODORA 

Once  she  had  assumed  the  marvellous  crown, 
with  its  ropes  of  pearls,  in  which  she  and  many 
of  the  other  Empresses  are  depicted,  her  whole 
character  is  said  to  have  changed.  Though  her 
enemies  accused  her  of  cruelty,  greed,  treachery, 
and  dishonesty — and  no  accounts  from  her  friends 
have  survived — yet  they  were  forced  to  admit 
that  she  acted  with  propriety  and  amazing 
courage ;  and  no  word  was  spoken  against  her 
virtue.  In  the  Nika  riots,  which  at  one  time 
threatened  to  depose  Justinian,  she  saved  the 
Empire.  Justinian,  his  ministers,  and  even  the 
hero  Belisarius,  were  for  flight,  the  mob  howling 
in  the  square  outside  the  Palace,  when  Theodora 
spoke  up  in  gallant  words  which  I  paraphrase. 
She  began  by  saying  how  indecorous  it  was  for 
a  woman  to  interfere  in  matters  of  State,  and  then 
went  on  to  say  :  "  We  must  all  die  some  time, 
but  it  is  a  terrible  thing  to  have  been  an  Emperor 
and  to  give  up  Empire  before  one  dies.  The 
purple  is  a  noble  winding-sheet !  Flight  is  easy, 
my  Emperor — there  are  the  steps  of  the  quay — 
there  are  the  ships  waiting  for  you ;  you  have 
money  to  live  on.  But  in  very  shame  you  will 
taste  the  bitterness  of  death  in  life  if  you  flee ! 
I,  your  wife,  will  not  flee,  but  will  stay  behind 
without  you,  and  will  die  an  Empress  rather 
than  live  a  coward  !  "  Proud  little  woman — 

7* 


POST    MORTEM 

could  that  woman  have  been  a  prostitute  selling 
her  body  in  degradation  ?  It  seems  impossible. 

The  Council,  regaining  courage,  decided  for 
fighting ;  armed  bands  were  sent  forth  into  the 
square  ;  the  riot  was  suppressed  with  Oriental  fero- 
city ;  and  the  Roman  Empire  lasted  nearly  a  thou- 
sand years  more.  "  Toujours  1'audace,"  as  Danton 
said  nearly  thirteen  hundred  years  later,  when, 
however,  he  was  not  in  imminent  peril  himself. 

In  person  Theodora  was  small,  slender,  graceful, 
and  exquisitely  beautiful ;  her  complexion  was 
pale,  her  eyes  singularly  expressive  :  the  mosaic 
at  Ravenna,  in  stiff  and  formal  art,  gives  some 
evidence  of  character  and  beauty.  She  was 
accused,  as  I  have  said,  of  barbarous  cruelties,  of 
herself  applying  the  torture  in  her  underground 
private  prisons ;  the  stories  are  contradictory 
and  inconsistent,  but  one  story  appears  to  be 
historical :  "  If  you  do  not  obey  me  I  swear 
by  the  living  God  that  I  will  have  you  flayed 
alive,"  she  said  with  gentle  grace  to  her  attend- 
ants. It  is  said  that  her  illegitimate  son,  whom 
she  had  disposed  of  by  putting  him  with  his  terri- 
fied father  in  Arabia,  gained  possession  of  the 
secret  of  his  birth,  and  boldly  repaired  to  Con- 
stantinople in  the  belief  that  her  maternal 
affection  would  lead  her  to  pardon  him  for  the 
offence  of  having  been  born,  and  that  thereby 

72 


^      s 


THE    EMPRESS    THEODORA 

he  would  attain  to  riches  and  greatness ;  but 
the  story  goes  that  he  was  never  seen  again  after 
he  entered  the  Palace.  Possibly  the  story  is  of 
the  nature  of  romance.  She  dearly  longed  for  a 
legitimate  son,  and  the  faithful  united  in  prayer 
to  that  end ;  but  the  sole  fruit  of  her  marriage 
was  a  daughter,  and  even  this  girl  was  said  to  have 
been  conceived  before  the  wedding. 

When  she  was  still  adolescent  she  went  for  a 
tour  in  the  Levant  with  a  wealthy  Tyrian  named 
Ecebolus,  who,  disgusted  by  her  violent  temper 
or  her  universal  charity,  to  use  Gibbon's  sly 
phrase,  deserted  her  and  left  her  penniless  at 
Alexandria.  The  men  of  Egypt  appear  to  have 
been  less  erotic  than  the  Greeks,  for  she  remained 
in  dire  poverty,  working  her  way  back  home  by 
way  of  the  shores  of  the  Euxine.  In  Egypt  she 
had  become  a  Monophysite ;  and  when  she 
reached  Constantinople  it  is  said  that  she  sat 
in  a  pleasant  home  outside  the  Palace  and  plied 
her  spinning-wheel  so  virtuously  that  Justinian 
fell  in  love  with  her  and  ultimately  married  her, 
having  first  tried  her  charms.  Passing  over  the 
obvious  difficulty  that  a  girl  of  the  charm  and 
immorality  of  Procopius'  Theodora  need  never 
have  gone  in  poverty  while  men  were  men,  the 
wonder  naturally  arises  whether  the  girl  who 
went  away  with  Ecebolus  was  the  same  as  she 

73 


POST    MORTEM 

who  returned  poor  and  alone  and  sat  so  vir- 
tuously at  her  spinning-wheel  as  to  bewitch 
Justinian.  Mistaken  identity,  or  rather  loss  of 
identity,  must  have  been  commoner  in  those 
days  than  these  when  the  printing-press  and 
rapid  postal  and  telegraphic  communication 
make  it  harder  to  lose  one's  self.  However, 
granting  that  there  was  no  confusion  of  identity, 
one  may  believe — if  one  tries  hard  enough — that 
she  was  befriended  by  the  Monophysites  in 
Egypt,  and  may  have  "  found  religion  "  at  their 
hands,  and,  by  suffering  poverty  and  oppression 
with  them,  had  learned  to  sympathize  with  the 
under-world.  Though  the  story  may  seem  to 
be  more  suitable  for  an  American  picture-show 
than  for  sober  history,  still  one  must  admit  that 
it  is  not  absolutely  impossible.  When  she  be- 
came great  and  famous  she  did  not  forget  those 
who  had  rescued  her  in  the  days  of  her  affliction  ; 
and  her  influence  on  Justinian  is  to  be  seen  in 
the  "  feminism  "  which  is  so  marked  in  his  code. 
What  makes  it  not  impossible  is  the  well-known 
fact  that  violent  sexuality  is  in  some  way  related 
to  powerful  religious  instincts ;  and  the  theory 
that  the  passions  which  had  led  Theodora  to  the 
brothel  may, when  her  mind  was  turned  to  religion, 
have  led  her  to  be  a  Puritan,  is  rather  attractive. 
But  nothing  is  said  about  Theodora  which  has 

74 


THE    EMPRESS    THEODORA 

not  in  some  way  been  twisted  to  her  infamy. 
The  only  certain  fact  about  her  is  that 
she  had  enormous  influence  over  her  husband, 
and  it  is  difficult  to  believe  that  a  great  and  able 
man  like  Justinian  could  have  entirely  yielded 
his  will  to  the  will  of  a  cruel  and  treacherous 
harlot.  The  idea  certainly  opens  an  unexpectedly 
wide  vista  of  masculine  weakness. 

She  used  this  influence  in  helping  to  frame  the 
great  Code  of  Justinian,  which  has  remained  the 
standard  of  law  in  many  countries  ever  since.  A 
remarkable  feature  about  this  code  is  that,  while 
it  is  severe  on  the  keepers  of  brothels,  it  is  mild 
to  leniency  on  the  unhappy  women  who  pros- 
tituted themselves  for  these  keepers'  benefit. 
The  idea  that  a  prostitute  is  a  woman,  with 
rights  and  feelings  like  any  other  woman,  appears 
to  have  been  unknown  until  Theodora  had  it 
introduced  into  the  code  of  laws  which  per- 
petuates her  husband's  memory.  One  night 
she  collected  all  the  prostitutes  in  Constanti- 
nople, five  hundred  in  all — were  there  only  five 
hundred  in  that  vast  Oriental  city  ? — shut  them 
up  in  a  palace  on  the  Asiatic  shore  of  the  Bos- 
phorus,  and  expected  them  to  reform  as  she  had 
reformed,  but  with  less  success ;  as  our  modern 
experience  would  lead  us  to  expect.  The  girls 
grew  morbidly  unhappy,  and  many  threw  them- 

75 


POST    MORTEM 

selves  into  the  sea.  Even  in  a  lock  hospital  we 
know  how  difficult  it  is  to  reclaim  girls  to  whom 
sexual  intercourse  has  become  a  matter  of  daily 
habit,  and  if  Theodora's  well-meant  attempt 
failed  we  must  at  least  give  her  credit  for  an 
attempt  at  an  idealistic  impossibility.  These 
girls  did  not  have  the  prospect  of  marrying  an 
Emperor ;  no  pearl-stringed  crown  was  dangled 
before  their  fingers  for  the  grasping.  Poor 
human  nature  is  not  so  easily  kept  on  the  strait 
and  narrow  path  as  Theodora  thought.  Through- 
out her  life  she  seems  to  have  had  great  sympathy 
for  the  poor  and  the  oppressed,  and  one  feels 
with  Edward  Foord  that  one  can  forgive  her  a 
great  deal.  We  must  not  forget  that  her  husband 
called  her  his  "  honoured  wife,"  his  "  gift  from 
God,"  and  his  "  sweet  delight " ;  and  spoke 
most  gratefully  of  her  interest  and  assistance 
in  framing  his  great  code  of  laws.  Was  her 
humanitarianism,  her  sympathy  with  down- 
trodden women,  the  result  of  her  own  sad  past 
experience  ?  To  think  so  would  be  to  turn  her 
pity  towards  vice  into  an  argument  against  her 
own  virtue,  and  I  shrink  from  doing  so.  Let 
us  rather  believe  that  she  really  did  perceive 
how  terribly  the  Fates  have  loaded  the  dice 
against  women,  and  that  she  did  what  she 
could  to  make  their  paths  easier  through 


THE    EMPRESS    THEODORA 

this  earth  on  which  we  have  no  continuing  city. 

Her  health  gave  her  a  great  deal  of  trouble, 
and  she  spent  many  months  of  every  year  in  her 
beautiful  villas  on  the  shores  of  the  Sea  of  Mar- 
mora and  the  Bosphorus.  She  remained  in 
bed  most  of  every  day,  rising  late,  and  retiring 
early.  To  Procopius  and  the  Synodists  these 
habits  were  naturally  signs  of  Oriental  weakness 
and  luxury ;  but  may  not  the  poor  lady  have 
been  really  ill  ?  She  visited  several  famous 
baths  in  search  of  health,  and  we  have  a  vivid 
account  of  her  journey  through  Bithynia  on  her 
way  to  the  hot  springs  of  the  Pythian  Apollo 
near  Brusa. 

We  have  no  evidence  as  to  the  nature  of  her 
illness.  Her  early  life,  of  course,  suggests  some 
venereal  trouble,  and  it  is  interesting  to  inquire 
into  the  position  of  the  various  venereal  diseases 
at  that  time.  Syphilis  I  think  we  may  rule  out 
of  court ;  for  it  is  now  generally  believed  that 
that  disease  was  not  known  in  Europe  until 
after  the  return  of  Columbus'  men  from  the 
West  Indian  islands.  Some  of  the  bones  of 
Egypt  were  thought  to  show  signs  of  syphilitic 
invasion  until  it  was  shown  by  Elliott  Smith 
that  similar  markings  are  caused  by  insects ; 
and  no  indubitable  syphilitic  lesion  has  ever  been 
found  in  any  of  the  mummies.  If  syphilis  did 

77 


POST    MORTEM 

really  occur  in  European  antiquity,  it  must  have 
been  exceedingly  rare  and  have  differed  widely 
in  its  pathological  effects  from  the  disease  which 
is  so  common  and  destructive  to-day ;  that  is 
to  say,  in  spite  of  certain  German  enthusiasts,  it 
could  not  have  been  syphilis. 

But  gonorrhoea  is  a  very  old  story,  and  was 
undoubtedly  prevalent  in  the  ancient  world. 
Luys  indeed  says  that  gonorrhoea  is  as  old  as 
mankind,  and  was  named  by  Galen  himself, 
though  regular  physicians  and  surgeons  scorned 
to  treat  it.  It  is  strange  that  there  is  so  little 
reference  to  this  disease  in  the  vast  amount  of 
pornographic  literature  which  has  come  down  to 
us.  Martial,  for  instance,  or  Ovid ;  nothing 
would  seem  too  obscene  to  have  passed  by  their 
salacious  minds ;  yet  neither  of  them  so  much 
as  hint  that  such  a  thing  as  gonorrhoea  existed. 
But  it  is  possible  that  such  a  disease  might  have 
been  among  the  things  unlucky  or  "  tabu." 
All  nations  and  all  ages  have  been  more  or  less 
under  the  influence  of  tabu,  which  ranges  from 
influence  on  the  most  trivial  matters  to  settle- 
ment of  the  gravest.  Thus,  many  men  would 
almost  rather  die  than  walk  abroad  in  a  frock 
coat  and  tan  boots,  or,  still  more  dreadful,  in  a 
frock  coat  and  Homburg  hat,  though  that 
freakish  costume  appears  to  be  common  enough 

78 


THE    EMPRESS     THEODORA 

in  America.  In  this  matter  we  are  under  the 
influence  of  tabu — the  thing  which  prevents  us, 
or  should  prevent  us,  from  eating  peas  with  our 
knife,  or  making  unseemly  noises  when  we  eat 
soup,  or  playing  a  funeral  march  at  a  cheerful 
social  gathering.  In  all  these  things  the  idea  of 
nefas — unlucky — seems  more  or  less  to  enter  ; 
similarly  we  do  not  like  to  walk  under  a  ladder 
lest  a  paint-pot  should  fall  upon  us.  Many  people 
hate  to  mention  the  dread  word  "death,"  lest 
that  should  untimely  be  their  portion.  Just  so 
possibly  a  licentious  man  like  Ovid  may  have 
been  swayed  by  some  such  fear,  and  he  may  have 
refrained  from  writing  about  the  horrid  disease 
which  he  must  have  known  was  ever  waiting  for 
him. 

But  though  it  may  seem  to  have  been  impossible 
that  any  prostitute  should  have  escaped  gonorrhoea 
in  Byzantium,  just  as  it  is  impossible  in  modern 
London  or  Sydney,  yet  there  is  no  evidence  that 
Theodora  so  suffered ;  what  hints  we  have,  if 
they  weigh  on  either  side  at  all,  seem  to  make 
it  unlikely.  She  had  a  child  after  her  marriage 
with  Justinian,  though  women  who  have  had 
untreated  gonorrhoea  are  very  frequently  or 
generally  sterile.  Nor  is  there  any  evidence 
that  Justinian  ever  had  any  serious  illness  except 
the  bubonic  plague,  from  which  he  suffered,  and 

79 


POST    MORTEM 

recovered,  during  the  great  epidemic  of  546. 
I  assume  that  the  buboes  from  which  he  doubtless 
suffered  at  that  time  were  not  venereal  but 
were  the  ordinary  buboes  of  plague.  He  had 
been  Theodora's  husband  for  many  years  before 
that  terrible  year  in  which  the  plague  swept  away 
about  a  third  of  the  population  of  the  Roman 
Empire,  where  it  had  been  simmering  ever 
since  the  time  of  Marcus  Aurelius.  If  Theodora 
really  had  gonorrhoea,  Justinian  must  have  caught 
it,  and  it  is  unlikely  that  he  would  have  called 
her  his  "  honoured  wife." 

A  more  probable  explanation  of  her  continued 
ill-health  might  be  that  she  became  septic  at  her 
confinement,  when  the  unwanted  girl  was  born. 
When  the  Byzantines  spoke  of  a  child  as  being 
"born  in  the  purple,"  they  spoke  literally,  for 
the  Roman  Empress  was  always  sent  to  a  "  por- 
phyry palace  "  on  the  Bosphorus  for  her  confine- 
ment ;  and  once  there  she  had  access  to  less  good 
treatment  than  is  available  for  any  sempstress 
to-day.  It  is  impossible  to  suppose  that  the 
porphyry  palace — the  "  purple  house  " — ever 
became  infected  with  puerperal  sepsis  because 
there  was  never  more  than  one  confinement 
going  on  at  a  time  within  its  walls,  and  that  only 
at  long  intervals.  Still,  there  must  have  been 
a  great  many  septic  confinements  and  unrecorded 

80 


THE    EMPRESS    THEODORA 

female  misery  from  their  results  among  the 
women  of  that  early  world ;  and  that  must  be 
remembered  when  we  consider  the  extraordinarily 
small  birth-rate  of  the  Imperial  families  during 
so  many  centuries.  Had  the  Roman  Emperors 
been  able  to  point  to  strong  sons  to  inherit  their 
glories,  possibly  the  history  of  the  Empire  would 
have  been  less  turbulent.  A  Greek  or  Roman 
Lister  might  have  altered  the  history  of  the  world 
by  giving  security  of  succession  to  the  Imperial 
despot. 

After  all,  it  is  idle  to  speculate  on  Theodora's 
illness,  and  it  does  not  much  matter.  She  has 
long  gone  to  her  account,  poor  fascinating 
creature ;  all  her  beauty  and  wit  and  eager 
vivacity  are  as  though  they  had  never  been  save 
for  their  influence  upon  her  husband's  laws. 
Theodora  is  the  standing  example  of  woman's 
fate  to  achieve  results  through  the  agency  of 
some  man. 

She  died  of  cancer,  and  died  young.  There 
is  no  record  of  the  original  site  of  the  cancer ; 
the  ecclesiastic  who  records  the  glad  tidings 
merely  relates  joyfully  that  it  was  diffused 
throughout  her  body,  as  was  only  right  and  proper 
in  one  who  differed  from  him  in  religious  opinions. 
It  is  generally  thought  that  it  started  in  the 
breast.  No  doubt  this  is  a  modern  guess,  though 

81  F 


POST    MORTEM 

of  course  cancer  of  the  breast  is  notorious  for 
the  way  in  which  its  secondary  growths  spread 
through  liver,  lungs,  bones,  neck,  spine,  and  so 
forth ;  and  there  is  little  reason  to  suppose  that 
the  guess  is  incorrect.  After  trying  all  the  usual 
remedies  for  "  lumps,"  her  physicians  deter- 
mined to  send  her  to  the  baths  of  Brusa,  famous 
in  miraculous  cure.  There  were  two  large  iron 
and  two  large  sulphur  springs,  besides  smaller 
ones ;  and  people  generally  went  there  in  spring 
and  early  summer  when  the  earth  was  gaily 
carpeted  with  the  myriad  flowers  that  spring  up 
and  fade  before  the  heat  of  the  Mediterranean 
July.  May  we  infer  from  the  choice  of  a  sulphur 
bath  that  the  cancer  had  already  invaded  the 
skin  ?  Possibly.  Such  a  horror  may  have  been 
the  determining  factor  which  induced  the  Empress 
and  her  physicians  to  travel  afield.  But  if  so, 
surely  the  recording  priest  missed  a  chance  of 
rejoicing ;  for  he  does  not  tell  us  the  glad  news. 
All  over  Bithynia  and  the  Troad  there  were, 
and  are,  hot  mineral  springs ;  Homer  relates 
how  one  hot  spring  and  a  cold  gushed  from 
beneath  the  walls  of  Troy  itself.  The  girls  of 
Troy  used  to  wash  their  clothes  in  the  hot  spring 
whenever  Agamemnon  would  let  them. 

When  Theodora  went  to  Brusa  she  was  accom- 
panied by  a  retinue  of  four  thousand,  and  Heaven 

82 


THE    EMPRESS    THEODORA 

resounded  with  the  prayers  of  the  Monophysites ; 
but  the  Orthodox  refused  to  pray  for  the  recovery 
of  so  infamous  a  heretic,  just  as  they  had  refused 
to  join  in  her  prayers  for  a  son.  Theodora  met 
with  little  loving-kindness  on  this  earth  after  she 
had  left  Egypt ;  possibly  the  world  repaid  her 
with  what  it  received  from  her. 

The  sanctuaries  of  Asklepios  were  the  great 
centres  of  Greek  and  Roman  healing,  and  the 
treatment  there  was  both  mental  and  physical. 
The  temples  were  generally  built  in  charming 
localities,  where  everything  was  peace  and  love- 
liness ;  the  patients  lay  in  beds  in  beautiful 
colonnades,  and  to  them,  last  thing  at  night, 
priests  delivered  restful  and  touching  services ; 
when  sleep  came  upon  them  they  dreamt,  and 
the  dreams  were  looked  upon  as  the  voice  of 
God ;  they  followed  His  instructions  and  were 
cured.  They  were  not  cured,  however,  if  they 
had  cancer.  One  ^Elius  Aristides  has  left  us  a 
vivid — and  unconsciously  amusing — account  of 
his  adventures  in  search  of  health ;  he  seems  to 
have  been  a  neurotic  man  who  ultimately  de- 
veloped into  a  first-class  neurasthenic.  To  him 
his  beloved  god  was  indeed  a  trial,  as  no  doubt 
Aristides  himself  was  to  his  more  earthly  phy- 
sicians. He  would  sit  surrounded  by  his  friends, 
to  whom  he  would  pour  out  his  woes  in  true 

83 


POST    MORTEM 

neurasthenic  style.  Aristides  seems  never  to 
have  been  truly  happy  unless  he  was  talking 
about  his  ailments,  and  he  loyally  followed  any 
suggestion  for  treatment  if  only  he  could  persuade 
himself  that  it  came  from  the  beloved  Asklepios. 
The  god  would  send  him  a  vision,  that  ordered 
him  to  bathe  three  times  in  icy  water  when 
fevered,  and  afterwards  to  run  a  mile  in  the  teeth 
of  a  north-east  wind — and  the  north- casters  in 
the  Troad  can  be  bitter  indeed ;  very  different 
from  the  urbane  and  gentle  breath  that  spreads 
so  delicious  a  languor  over  the  summer  of  Sydney  ! 
This  behest  the  much-tried  man  of  faith  would 
dutifully  perform,  accompanied  by  a  running 
bodyguard  of  doctors  and  nurses  marvelling  at 
his  endurance  and  the  inscrutable  wisdom  of  the 
god,  though  they  expected,  and  no  doubt  in 
their  inmost  hearts  hoped,  that  their  long- 
suffering  patient  would  drop  dead  from  ex- 
haustion. There  were  real  doctors  at  these 
shrines  besides  priests.  The  doctors  seem  to 
have  been  much  the  same  kind  of  inquisitive 
and  benevolent  persons  as  we  are  to-day ;  some 
of  them  were  paid  to  attend  the  poor  without 
fee.  The  nurses  were  both  male  and  female, 
and  appear  to  have  been  most  immoral  people. 
Aristides  was  the  wonder  of  his  age ;  his  fame 
spread  from  land  to  land,  and  it  is  marvellous 


THE    EMPRESS    THEODORA 

that  he  neither  succumbed  to  his  heroic  treat- 
ment nor  lost  his  faith  in  the  divine  being  that 
subjected  him  to  such  torment.  Both  facts 
are  perhaps  characteristic  of  mankind.  The 
manner  of  his  end  I  do  not  know. 

In  Theodora's  time  Asklepios  and  the  other 
Olympian  divinities  had  long  been  gathered 
to  their  fathers  before  the  advancing  tides  of 
Christianity  and  Earth-Mother  worship ;  but 
though  the  old  gods  were  gone  the  human  body 
and  human  spirit  remained  the  same,  and  there 
is  no  doubt  that  she  was  expected  to  dream  and 
bathe  and  drink  mineral  waters  just  as  Aristides 
had  done  centuries  before  ;  and  no  doubt  a  crowd 
of  sympathizing  friends  sat  round  her  on  the 
marble  seats  which  are  still  there  and  tried  to 
console  her — a  difficult  task  when  the  sufferer 
has  cancer  of  the  breast.  She  sat  there,  her 
beauty  faded,  her  once-rounded  cheeks  ashy  with 
cachexia  and  lined  with  misery,  brooding  over 
the  real  nature  of  the  Christ  she  was  so  soon 
to  meet,  wondering  whether  she  or  her  implacable 
enemies  were  in  the  right  as  to  His  soul — whether 
He  had  in  truth  two  souls  or  one.  She  had  made 
her  choice,  and  it  was  too  late  now  to  alter ;  in 
any  case  she  was  too  gallant  a  little  Empress  to 
quail  in  the  face  of  death,  come  he  never  so 
horribly.  Let  us  hope  that  she  had  discovered 

8s 


POST    MORTEM 

before  she  died  that  Christ  the  All-merciful 
would  forgive  even  so  atrocious  a  sin  as  attri- 
buting to  Him  a  single  soul !  All  her  piety,  all 
the  prayers  of  her  friends,  and  all  the  medical 
skill  of  Brusa  proved  in  vain,  and  she  died  in 
A.D.  548,  being  then  forty  years  of  age.  So  we 
take  leave  of  this  woman,  whom  many  consider 
the  most  remarkable  in  history.  Let  us  envisage 
her  to  ourselves — this  graceful,  exquisite,  little 
cameo-faced  lady,  passionate  in  her  loves  and 
her  hates,  with  some  of  the  languor  of  the  East 
in  her  blood,  much  of  the  tigress ;  brave  in 
danger  and  resourceful  in  time  of  trouble ; 
loyal  and  faithful  to  her  learned  husband  as  he 
was  loyal  to  her ;  yet  perhaps  a  little  despising 
him.  Except  Medea,  as  seen  by  Euripides, 
Theodora  was  probably  the  first  feminist,  and  as 
such  has  made  her  mark  upon  the  world.  On 
the  whole  her  influence  upon  the  Roman  Empire 
seems  to  have  been  for  good,  and  the  merciful 
and  juster  trend  of  the  laws  she  inspired  must 
be  noted  in  her  favour. 

Theodora  dead,  the  glory  of  Justinian  departed. 
He  seemed  to  be  stunned  by  the  calamity,  and 
for  many  critical  months  took  no  part  in  the 
world's  affairs ;  even  after  he  recovered  he 
seemed  but  the  shadow  of  his  old  self.  Faithful 
to  her  in  life,  he  remained  faithful  after  her 

86 


THE    EMPRESS    THEODORA 

death,  and  sought  no  other  woman ;  that  is 
another  reason  for  thinking  that  Procopius  lied. 
He  lived,  a  lonely  and  friendless  old  man,  for 
eighteen  more  years,  hated  by  his  subjects  for 
his  extortionate  taxation — which  they  attributed 
to  the  extravagance  of  the  crowned  prostitute, 
though  more  likely  it  was  due  to  the  enormous 
campaigns  of  Belisarius  and  Narses  the  eunuch, 
as  a  result  of  which  Italy  and  Africa  once  more 
came  under  the  sway  of  the  East.  Justinian 
was  lonely  on  his  death-bed,  and  the  world 
breathed  a  sigh  of  relief  when  he  was  gone.  He 
had  long  outlived  his  glory. 


The  Emperor  Charles  V 

THAT  extraordinary  phenomenon  which, 
being  neither  Holy,  nor  Roman,  nor  yet 
strictly  speaking  an  Empire,  was  yet  called  the 
Holy  Roman  Empire,  began  when  Charlemagne 
crossed  the  Alps  to  rescue  the  reigning  Pope  from 
the  Lombards  in  A.D.  800.  The  Pope  crowned 
him  Roman  Emperor  of  the  West,  a  title  which 
had  been  extinct  since  the  time  of  Odoacer  more 
than  three  hundred  years  before.  The  revival 
of  the  resplendent  title  caused  the  unhappy 
people  of  the  Dark  Ages  to  think  for  a  moment 
in  their  misery  that  the  mighty  days  of  Augustus 
and  Marcus  Aurelius  had  returned ;  it  seemed  to 
add  the  power  of  God  to  the  romance  of  ages 
and  the  brute  power  of  kings.  During  the  next 
two  centuries  the  peoples  of  France  and  Germany 
gradually  evolved  into  two  separate  nations,  but 
it  was  impossible  for  men  to  forget  the  great 
brooding  power  which  had  given  the  Pax  Romana 
to  the  world,  and  its  hallowed  memory  survived 
more  beneficent  than  possibly  it  really  was ;  it 
appeared  to  their  imaginations  that  if  it  were 
possible  to  unite  the  sanctity  of  the  Pope  with 
the  organizing  power  of  Rome  the  blessed  times 

88 


THE    EMPEROR    CHARLES    V 

might  again  return  when  a  man  might  reap  in 
peace  what  he  had  sown  in  peace,  and  the  long 
agony  of  the  Dark  Ages  might  be  lifted  from 
mankind.  When  Henry  the  Fowler  had  welded 
the  Germans  into  a  people  with  a  powerful  king 
the  time  appeared  to  have  arisen,  and  his  son 
Otto  was  crowned  Holy  Roman  Emperor.  He 
was  not  Emperor  of  Germany,  nor  German 
Emperor ;  he  was  Holy  Roman  Emperor  of  the 
German  people,  wielding  power,  partly  derived 
from  the  religious  power  of  the  Pope,  and  partly 
from  the  military  resources  of  whatever  fiefs  he 
might  hold ;  and  this  enormous  and  loosely  knit 
organization  persisted  until  1806 — nearly  seven 
hundred  years  from  the  time  of  Otto,  and  more 
than  1,000  years  after  the  time  of  Charlemagne. 
This  mediaeval  Roman  Empire  was  founded  on 
sentiment ;  it  took  its  power  from  blessed — and 
probably  distorted — memories  of  a  golden  age, 
when  one  mighty  Imperator  really  did  rule  the 
civilized  world  with  a  strong  and  autocratic  hand. 
It  was  a  pathetic  attempt  to  put  back  the  hands 
of  the  clock.  It  bespoke  the  misery  through 
which  mankind  was  passing  in  the  attempt  to 
combine  feudalism  with  justice.  When  the 
mediaeval  Emperor  was  not  fighting  with  the  Pope 
he  was  generally  fighting  with  his  presumed  sub- 
jects ;  occasionally  he  tried  to  defend  Europe 


POST    MORTEM 

from  the  Turks.  He  might  have  justified  his 
existence  by  defending  Constantinople  in  1453, 
by  which  he  would  have  averted  the  greatest 
disaster  that  has  ever  befallen  Europe.  He 
missed  that  opportunity,  and  the  mediaeval 
Empire,  though  it  survived  that  extraordinary 
calamity,  yet  continued  ramshackle,  feeble,  and 
medievally  glorious  until  long  past  the  Protestant 
Reformation.  Being  Roman,  of  course  it  was 
anti-Lutheran,  and  devoted  its  lumbering  energies 
to  the  destruction  of  the  Protestants.  No  Holy 
Roman  Emperor  ever  rivalled  the  greatness  of 
Charles  V,  in  whose  frame  shone  all  the  romance 
and  glamour  of  centuries.  How  vast  was  his 
power  is  shown  when  we  consider  that  he  ruled 
over  the  Netherlands,  Burgundy,  Spain,  Austria, 
much  of  what  is  now  Germany,  and  Italy ;  and 
he  was  not  a  man  to  be  contented  with  a  nominal 
rule. 

He  was  born  in  Ghent  in  1500  to  Philip,  Duke 
of  Burgundy,  and  Juana,  who  is  commonly  known 
as  "  Crazy  Jane  " ;  it  is  now  generally  believed 
that  she  was  insane,  though  the  Spaniards  shrank 
from  imputing  insanity  to  a  queen.  From  his 
father  he  inherited  the  principalities  of  the 
Netherlands  and  Burgundy ;  from  his  mother  he 
inherited  the  kingships  of  Spain,  Naples,  and  the 
Spanish  colonies.  When  his  grandfather,  the 

90 


THE    EMPEROR    CHARLES    V 

Hapsburg  Emperor  Maximilian,  died,  Charles 
was  elected  Emperor  in  1519  ;  the  other  candidate 
was  Francis  I  of  France.  The  electors  were  the 
seven  Kurjursten  of  Germany,  and  Charles 
bribed  the  harder  of  the  two.  What  power  on 
earth  could  summon  before  a  magistrate  the 
kings  of  France  and  Spain  on  a  charge  of  im- 
properly influencing  the  vote  of  a  German 
princelet  ?  Once  having  attained  to  the  title 
of  Roman  Emperor,  added  to  the  enormous 
military  power  of  King  of  Spain,  Charles  im- 
mediately became  the  greatest  man  in  the  world. 
He  was  strong,  cautious,  athletic,  brave,  and 
immeasurably  sagacious ;  his  reputation  for  wis- 
dom long  survived  him. 

Francis  did  not  forgive  him  his  victory,  and 
for  the  next  quarter  of  a  century — until  1544 — 
Europe  resounded  with  the  rival  cries  of  the  two 
monarchs,  unhappy  Italy  being  usually  the  actual 
scene  of  battle.  At  Pavia  in  1525  Francis  had 
to  say  "  All  is  lost  save  honour  " — the  precise 
definition  of  "  honour  "  in  Francis's  mind  being 
something  very  different  from  what  it  is  to-day. 
Francis  was  captured  and  haled  to  Madrid  to 
meet  his  grim  conqueror,  who  kept  him  in  prison 
until  he  consented  to  marry  Charles's  favourite 
sister  Eleanor  of  Austria,  and  to  join  with  him 
in  an  alliance  against  the  heretics.  This  Eleanor 

91 


POST    MORTEM 

was  a  gentle  and  beautiful  lady  whom  Charles 
treated  with  true  brotherly  contempt ;  yet  she 
loved  him.  As  soon  as  Francis  was  out  of  prison 
he  forgot  that  he  was  married,  and  made  love  to 
every  pretty  girl  that  came  his  way. 

Francis  being  safely  out  of  the  way,  Charles 
turned  to  the  great  aim  of  his  life — to  reconcile 
Protestants  with  Catholics  throughout  his  colossal 
Empire.  He  was  a  strong  Catholic,  and  dis- 
played immense  energy  in  the  reconciliation. 
According  to  Gibbon,  who  quotes  the  learned 
Grotius,1  he  burned  100,000  Netherlanders,  and 
Gibbon  dolefully  remarks  that  this  one  Holy 
Roman  Emperor  slew  more  Christians  than  all 
the  pagan  Roman  Emperors  put  together.  Charles 
appears  to  have  grown  gradually  into  the  habit  of 
persecution ;  he  began  comparatively  mildly,  and 
it  was  not  till  1550  that  he  began  to  see  that  there 
was  really  nothing  else  to  do  with  these  dull  and 
obstinate  Lutherans  but  to  burn  them.  He 
could  not  understand  it.  He  was  sure  he  was 
right,  and  yet  the  more  Netherlanders  he  burned 
the  fewer  seemed  to  attend  mass.  Moreover,  it 

1  Grotius  was  the  Dutchman  who  could  write  Latin  verse 
at  the  age  of  nine,  and  had  to  leave  Holland  because  of  fierce 
theological  strife.  He  began  the  study  for  his  great  work  on 
the  laws  of  war  in  prison,  from  which  he  escaped  by  the  remark- 
able loyalty  of  his  wife.  Like  so  many  romantic  episodes, 
fiction  is  here  anticipated  by  fact. 

92 


THE    EMPEROR    CHARLES    V 

was  impossible  to  believe  that  those  things  the 
miscreant  Luther  had  said  about  the  immoral 
conduct  of  the  monks  could  be  true  ;  once  upon  a 
time  he  had  met  the  fellow,  and  had  him  in  his 
power  ;  why  had  he  not  burned  him  once  and  for 
all  and  saved  the  world  from  this  miserable 
holocaust  which  had  now  become  necessary 
through  the  man's  pestilential  teaching  ?  So 
Charles  went  on  with  his  conciliation,  driven  by 
conscience — the  most  terrible  spur  that  can  be 
applied  to  the  flanks  of  a  righteous  man.  No 
doubt  Torquemada  acted  from  conscience,  and 
Robespierre ;  possibly  even  Nero  could  have 
raked  up  some  sort  of  a  conscientious  motive  for 
all  he  did — the  love  of  pure  art,  perhaps.  "  Quails 
artifex  $ereo  !  "  said  he  in  one  of  those  terse 
untranslatable  Latin  phrases  when  he  was 
summoning  up  his  courage  to  fall  upon  his  sword 
in  the  high  Roman  manner ;  surely  there  spoke 
the  artist :  "  How  artistically  I  die  !  " 

The  activities  of  Charles  were  so  enormous 
that  it  is  impossible  in  this  short  sketch  even  to 
mention  them  all.  Besides  his  conquest  of 
Francis  and,  through  him,  Italy,  he  saved  Europe 
from  the  Turk.  To  Francis's  eternal  dishonour 
he  had  made  an  alliance  with  the  last  great  Turkish 
Sultan,  Solyman  the  Magnificent.  The  baleful 
power  which  had  conquered  Constantinople  less 

93 


POST    MORTEM 

than  a  century  before  seemed  to  be  sweeping  on 
to  spread  its  abominations  over  Western  Europe  ; 
and  history  finds  it  difficult  to  forgive  Francis 
for  assisting  its  latest  conqueror.  Men  remem- 
bered how  Constantine  Palaeologus  had  fallen 
amidst  smoke  and  carnage  in  his  empurpled 
blazonry,  heroic  to  the  last ;  they  forgot  that  the 
destruction  of  1453  was  probably  the  direct 
result  of  the  Venetian  and  French  attack  under 
Dandolo  in  1204,  from  which  Constantinople 
never  recovered.  In  talking  of  the  "  Terrible 
Turk  "  they  forgot  that  Dandolo  and  his  Vene- 
tians and  Frenchmen  had  committed  atrocities 
quite  as  terrible  as  the  Turks'  during  those  days 
and  nights  when  Constantinople  was  given  over 
to  rapine  ;  and  now  the  brilliant  Francis  appeared 
to  be  carrying  on  Dandolo's  war  against  civili- 
zation. So  when  Charles  stepped  forward  as 
the  great  hero  of  Europe,  and  drove  the  Turks 
down  the  Danube  with  an  army  under  his  own 
leadership  he  was  hailed  as  the  saviour  of  Christen- 
dom ;  it  is  to  this  that  he  owes  a  good  deal  of  his 
glory,  and  he  nobly  prepared  the  world  for  the 
still  greater  victory  of  Lepanto  to  be  won  by  his 
son  Don  John  of  Austria. 

Moreover,  it  was  during  his  reign  that  the 
great  American  conquests  of  the  Spanish  armies 
occurred,  and  the  name  of  Fernando  Cortes 

94 


THE    EMPEROR    CHARLES    V 

attained  to  eternal  glory ;  and  the  Portuguese 
voyager  Maghellan  made  those  wonderful  dis- 
coveries which  have  so  profoundly  influenced 
the  course  of  history.  There  had  been  no  man 
so  great  and  energetic  as  Charles  since  Charle- 
magne ;  since  him  his  only  rival  for  almost  super- 
human energy  has  been  Napoleon. 

That  pathetic  and  unhappy  queen  whom  we 
call  "  Bloody  Mary "  had  been  betrothed  to 
Charles  for  diplomatic  reasons  when  she  was  an 
infant,  but  he  had  broken  off  the  engagement 
and  ultimately  married  Isabella  of  Portugal, 
whose  fair  face  is  immortalized  by  Titian  in  the 
portrait  that  still  hangs  in  the  Prado,  Madrid. 
Auburn  of  hair,  with  blue  eyes  and  delicate 
features,  she  looks  the  very  type  of  what  we  used 
to  call  the  tubercular  diathesis ;  and  there  can 
be  no  doubt  that  Charles  really  loved  her.  Before 
he  married  her  he  had  had  an  illegitimate 
daughter  by  a  Flemish  girl ;  ten  years  after  she 
died  Barbara  Blomberg,  a  flighty  German,  bore 
him  a  son,  the  famous  Don  John  of  Austria.  But 
while  Isabella  lived  no  scandal  attached  to  his 
name.  Unhappily  his  only  legitimate  son  was 
Philip,  afterwards  Philip  II  of  Spain. 

When  Mary  came  to  the  throne  she  was 
intensely  unhappy.  During  the  dreadful  years 
that  preceded  the  divorce  of  Catherine  of  Aragon, 

95 


POST    MORTEM 

Charles  had  strongly  supported  Catherine's  cause  ; 
and  Mary  did  not  forget  his  aid  when  she  found 
herself  a  monarch,  lonely  and  friendless.  She 
let  him  know  that  she  would  be  quite  prepared 
to  marry  him  if  he  would  take  her.1  Probably 
Charles  was  terrified  by  the  advances  of  the  plain- 
faced  old  maid,  but  the  opportunity  of  strengthen- 
ing the  Catholic  cause  was  too  good  to  miss.  The 
house  of  Austria  was  always  famous  for  its  matri- 
monial skill ;  the  hexameter  pasquinade  went : 

"  Belk  gerant  alii — tu,  felix  Austria,  nube  !  " 
("Others  wage  war  for  a  throne — you,  happy  Austria, 
marry !  ") 

Charles,  in  his  dilemma,  turned  to  his  son 
Philip,  who  nobly  responded  to  the  call  of  duty. 
Of  him  Gibbon  might  have  said  that  "  he  sighed 
as  a  lover,  but  obeyed  as  a  son  "  if  he  had  not 
said  it  concerning  himself ;  and  Philip  broke  off 
his  engagement  to  the  Infanta  of  Portugal,  and 
married  the  fair  English  bride  himself. 

Charles  was  still  the  greatest  and  most  romantic 
figure  in  Europe — a  mighty  conqueror  and  famous 
Emperor  ;  any  woman  would  have  preferred  him 
to  his  mean-spirited  son  ;  and  Mary  was  grateful 
to  him  for  powerful  support  during  years  of 
anguish.  She  obeyed  his  wishes,  and  took  the 
son  instead  of  the  father. 

1  Sir  W.  Stirling-Maxwell,  The  Cloister  Life  of  Charles  V. 

96 


THE    EMPEROR    CHARLES    V 

Queen  Mary's  sad  life  deserves  a  word  of  sym- 
pathetic study.  With  her  mother  she  had  passed 
through  years  of  hideous  suffering,  culminating 
in  her  being  forced  by  her  father  to  declare  her- 
self a  bastard — probably  the  most  utterly  brutal 
act  of  Henry's  reign.  She  had  seen  the  fruits 
of  ungovernable  sexuality  in  the  fate  of  her  enemy 
Anne  Boleyn ;  added  to  her  plain  face  this 
probably  caused  her  to  repress  her  own  sex- 
complex  ;  finally  she  married  the  wretched  young 
creature  Philip,  who,  having  stirred  her  sexual 
passions,  left  her  to  pursue  his  tortuous  policy  in 
Spain.  All  the  time,  as  I  read  the  story,  she 
was  really  desirous  of  Charles,  his  brilliant  father. 
Love-sick  for  Charles ;  love-sick  for  Philip,  to 
whom  she  had  a  lawful  right  set  at  naught  by 
leagues  of  sea  ;  love-sick  for  any  man  whom  her 
pride  would  allow  her  to  possess — and  I  do  not 
hint  a  word  against  her  virtue — she  is  not  a 
creature  to  scorn  ;  she  is  rather  to  be  pitied.  Her 
father  had  been  a  man  of  strong  passions  and 
violent  deeds ;  from  him  she  had  inherited  that 
tendency  to  early  degeneration  of  the  cardio- 
vascular system  which  led  to  her  death  from  dropsy 
at  the  early  age  of  forty-two ;  and  her  repressed 
sex-complex  led  her  into  the  ways  of  a  ruthless 
religious  persecution,  probably  increased  by  the 
object-lesson  set  her  by  her  hero.  From  this 

97  G 


POST    MORTEM 

repressed  sex-complex  also  sprang  her  fierce  desire 
for  a  child,  though  the  historians  commonly 
attribute  this  emotion  to  a  desire  for  some  one  to 
carry  on  her  hatred  of  the  Protestants.  I  remem- 
ber the  case  of  a  young  woman  who  was  a  violent 
Labour  politician ;  unfortunately  it  became  neces- 
sary for  her  to  lose  her  uterus  because  of  a  fibroid 
tumour.  She  professed  to  be  frantically  sorry 
because  she  could  no  longer  bear  a  son  to  go  into 
Parliament  to  fight  the  battle  of  the  proletariat 
against  the  wicked  capitalist ;  but  once  in  a  moment 
of  weakness  she  confessed  that  what  she  had 
really  wanted  was  not  a  bouncing  young  politician, 
but  merely  a  dear  little  baby  to  be  her  own  child. 
Probably  some  such  motive  weighed  with  Mary. 
People  laughed  at  her  because  she  used  to  mistake 
any  abdominal  swelling,  or  even  the  normal 
diminution  of  menstruation  that  occurs  with 
middle  age,  for  a  sign  of  pregnancy * ;  but 
possibly  if  she  had  married  Charles  instead  of 
Philip,  and  had  lived  happily  with  him  as  his 
wife,  she  would  not  have  given  her  people  occasion 
to  call  her  "  Bloody  Mary."  She  is  the  saddest 
figure  in  English  history.  From  her  earliest 
infancy  she  had  been  taught  to  look  forward  to 
a  marriage  with  the  wonderful  man  who  to  her 

1  It  has  been  thought  that  she  suffered  from  "  phantom- 
tumour  " — "  pseudo-cyesis  "  in  medical  language. 


THE    EMPEROR    CHARLES    V 

mind — and  to  the  world's — typified  the  noblest 
qualities  of  humanity — courage,  bravery,  rich 
and  profound  wisdom,  learning  and  love  of  the 
beautiful  in  art  and  music  and  literature ;  friend 
and  admirer  of  Titian  and  gallant  helper  of  her 
mother.  Her  disappointment  must  have  been 
terrible  when  she  found  him  snatched  from  her 
grasp  and  saw  herself  condemned  either  to  a  life 
of  old  maidenhood  or  to  a  loveless  marriage  with 
a  mean  religious  fanatic  twelve  years  younger 
than  herself.  The  mentality  which  led  Mary  to 
persecute  the.  English  Protestants  contained  the 
same  qualities  as  had  led  Joan  of  Arc  to  her 
career  of  unrivalled  heroism,  and  to-day  leads  an 
old  maid  to  keep  parrots.  When  an  old  maid 
undresses  it  is  said  that  she  puts  a  cover  over  the 
parrot's  cage  lest  the  bird  should  see  her  naked- 
ness ;  that  is  a  phase  of  the  same  mentality  as 
Mary's  and  Joan's.  Loneliness,  sadness,  sup- 
pressed longing  for  the  unattainable — it  is  cruel 
to  laugh  at  an  old  maid. 

But  Charles  was  to  show  himself  mortal.  He 
had  always  been  a  colossal  eater,  and  had  never 
spared  himself  either  in  the  field  or  at  the  table. 
One  has  to  pay  for  these  things ;  if  a  man  wishes 
to  be  a  great  leader  and  to  undertake  great 
responsibilities  he  must  be  content  to  forswear 
carnal  delights  and  eat  sparingly ;  and  it  is  hardly 

99 


POST    MORTEM 

an  exaggeration  to  say  that  it  is  less  harmful  to 
drink  too  much  than  to  eat  too  much.  At  the 
age  of  thirty  Charles  began  to  suffer  from  "  gout  " 
— whatever  it  was  that  they  called  gout  in  those 
days.  At  the  age  of  fifty  he  began  to  lose  his 
teeth — apparently  from  pyorrhoea.  Possibly 
his  "  gout "  may  have  really  been  the  result  of 
focal  infection  from  his  septic  teeth.  At  fifty  his 
gout  "  flew  to  his  head,"  and  threatened  him  with 
sudden  death.  When  he  was  fifty-two  he  sud- 
denly became  pale  and  thin,  and  it  was  noticed 
that  his  hair  was  rapidly  turning  grey.  Clearly 
his  enormous  gluttony  was  beginning  to  result 
in  arterio-sclerosis,  and  at  fifty-four  it  was 
reported  to  his  enemy  the  Sultan  that  Charles 
had  lost  the  use  of  an  arm  and  a  leg.  Sir  William 
Stirling-Maxwell  thought  that  this  report  was 
the  exaggeration  of  an  enemy ;  but  it  is  quite 
possible  that  Charles  really  suffered  from  that 
annoying  condition  known  as  "  intermittent 
claudication,"  which  is  such  a  nuisance  to  both 
patient  and  doctor  in  cases  of  arterio-sclerosis. 
In  these  attacks  there  may  be  temporary  paralysis 
and  loss  of  the  power  of  speech.  The  cause  of 
them  is  not  quite  clear,  because  they  seldom  prove 
fatal ;  but  it  is  supposed  that  there  is  spasm  of 
some  small  artery  in  the  brain,  or  perhaps  a 
transitory  dropsy  of  some  motor  area.  Charles's 

100 


THE    EMPEROR    CHARLES    V 

speech  became  indistinct,  so  that  towards  the 
end  of  his  life  it  was  difficult  to  understand  what 
he  meant.  It  has  generally  been  supposed  that 
this  was  due  to  his  underhung  lower  jaw  and  loss 
of  teeth ;  but  it  is  equally  probable  that  dropsy 
of  the  speech-centre  may  have  been  at  the  root 
of  the  trouble,  such  as  is  so  frequently  observed 
in  arterio-sclerosis  or  its  congener  chronic  Bright 's 
disease,  and  is  also  often  caused  by  overstrain  and 
overeating.  He  began  to  feel  the  cold  intensely, 
and  sat  shivering  even  under  the  warmest  wraps ; 
he  said  himself  that  the  cold  seemed  to  be  in  his 
bones.  Probably  there  was  some  spasm  of  the 
arterioles,  such  as  is  often  seen  in  arterio-sclerosis. 

By  this  time,  what  with  the  failure  of  his  plans 
against  the  Protestants  and  his  wretched  health, 
he  had  made  up  his  mind  to  resign  the  burden  of 
Empire,  and  to  seek  repose  in  some  warmer 
climate,  where  he  could  rest  in  the  congenial 
atmosphere  of  a  monastery.  No  Roman  Emperor 
had  voluntarily  resigned  the  greatest  position  in 
the  world  since  Diocletian  in  A.D.  305  ;  curiously 
enough  he  too  had  been  a  persecutor,  so  that  his 
reign  is  known  among  the  hagiographers  as  "  the 
age  of  martyrs." 

Charles  called  together  a  great  meeting  at  the 
Castle  of  Caudenburg  in  Brussels  in  1556.  All  the 
great  ones  of  the  Empire  were  there,  and  the 

101 


POST    MORTEM 

Knights  of  tjie  Golden  Fleece,  an  order  which 
still  vies  for  greatness  with  our  own  order  of  the 
Garter ;  possibly  it  may  now  even  excel  that  order, 
because  it  is  unlikely  that  it  will  ever  again  be 
conferred  by  an  Austrian  Emperor.  Like  the 
Garter,  it  had  "  no  damned  pretence  of  merit 
about  it."  If  you  were  entitled  to  wear  the 
chain  and  insignia  of  the  Golden  Fleece,  you 
were  a  man  of  very  noble  birth.  Yet,  like  the 
Order  of  the  Thistle,  the  Fleece  may  yet  be  re- 
vived, and  may  recover  its  ancient  splendour.  On 
the  right  of  the  Emperor  sat  his  son  Philip,  just 
returned,  a  not-impetuous  bridegroom,  from 
marrying  Mary  of  England.  On  his  left  he  leant 
painfully  and  short  of  breath  upon  the  shoulder 
of  William  the  Silent,  who  was  soon  to  become 
of  some  little  note  in  the  world.  It  was  a  strange 
group  :  the  great,  bold  Emperor  whose  course 
was  so  nearly  run  ;  the  mean  little  king-consort 
of  England  ;  and  the  noble  patriot  statesman  who 
was  soon  to  drag  Philip's  name  in  the  dust  of 
ignominy.  Charles  spoke  at  some  length,  re- 
counting how  he  had  won  many  victories  and 
suffered  many  defeats,  yet,  though  so  constantly 
at  war,  he  had  always  striven  for  peace  ;  how  he 
had  crossed  the  Mediterranean  many  times 
against  the  Turk,  and  had  made  forty  long 
journeys  and  many  short  ones  to  see  for  himself 

102 


THE    EMPEROR    CHARLES    V 

the  troubles  of  his  subjects.  He  insisted  proudly 
that  he  had  never  done  any  man  a  cruelty  or  an 
injustice.  He  burst  into  tears  and  sat  down, 
showing  the  emotionalism  that  so  often 
attends  upon  high  blood-pressure ;  and  the 
crowd,  seeing  the  great  soldier  weep,  wept  with 
him.  Eleanor  gave  him  a  cordial  to  drink,  and 
he  resumed,  saying  that  at  last  he  had  found  the 
trials  of  Empire  more  than  his  health  would  allow 
him  to  sustain.  He  had  decided  to  abdicate  in 
favour  of  his  beloved  son  Philip.  It  was  given  to 
few  monarchs  to  die  and  yet  to  live — to  see  his 
own  glory  continued  in  the  glory  which  he 
expected  for  his  son.  It  seems  to  have  been  a 
really  touching  and  dramatic  scene,  causing  an 
immense  sensation  throughout  Europe.  If  there 
were  ever  an  indispensable  man  it  would  have 
appeared  at  that  time  to  be  the  Emperor  Charles 
V ;  the  world  quaked  in  apprehension. 

It  was  some  time  before  Charles  could  carry 
out  his  design,  but  ultimately  he  went,  by  a  long 
and  dangerous  journey,  to  the  place  of  his  retire- 
ment, Yuste,  in  Estremadura,  Northern  Spain, 
where  there  slept  a  little  monastery  of  followers 
of  St.  Jerome  ;  why  he — a  Fleming — should  have 
picked  on  this  lonely  and  inaccessible  place  is  not 
known.  With  him  went  a  little  band  of  attend- 
ants,chief  among  whom  was  his  stout  old  chamber- 

103 


POST    MORTEM 

lain,  Don  Luis  Quixada,  of  whom  we  shall  hear 
more  when  we  come  to  consider  Don  John  of 
Austria.  This  Quixada  seems  to  have  been  a 
fine  type  of  Spanish  grandee,  loyal  and  faithful ; 
a  merry  grandee  also,  who  added  sound  sense  to 
jocund  playfulness.  Note  well  the  name ;  we  shall 
meet  it  again  to  some  purpose. 

Charles  was  mistaken  in  supposing  that  he 
could  find  rest  at  Yuste ;  the  world  would  not 
let  him  rest.  He  had  been  a  figure  too  over- 
whelming. He  spent  his  days  in  reading  dis- 
patches from  all  who  were  in  trouble  and  fancied 
that  the  great  man  could  pluck  them  from  the 
toils.  Chief  of  his  suppliants  was  his  son  Philip, 
who  found  the  mantle  that  had  seemed  to  sit  so 
easily  on  his  father's  mighty  shoulders  intolerably 
heavy  when  he  came  to  wear  it  himself.  To  the 
man  who  is  strong  in  his  wisdom  and  resolution 
difficulties  disappear  when  they  are  boldly  faced. 
Philip  was  timorous,  poor-spirited,  pedantic,  and 
procrastinating.  He  constantly  appealed  to  his 
father  for  advice,  and  Charles  responded  in  letters 
which  seem  to  show,  in  their  evidence  of  annoy- 
ance, the  irritability  that  goes  with  a  high  blood- 
pressure.  An  epidemic  of  Reformation  was 
breaking  out  in  Spain,  however  sterile  might 
seem  the  soil  of  that  nation  for  Protestantism  to 
flourish.  It  is  not  quite  clear  why  no  serious 

104 


THE    EMPEROR    CHARLES    V 

move  towards  the  Reformed  Religion  ever  took 
place  among  the  Spaniards.  It  is  probable  that 
the  ancient  faith  had  thrust  its  roots  too  deeply 
into  their  hearts  during  the  centuries  of  struggle 
against  the  Moors.  In  the  minds  of  the  Spanish 
people  it  had  been  the  Church  which  had  in- 
spired their  ancestors — not  the  kings ;  and  they 
were  not  going  to  desert  the  old  religion  now 
that  they  saw  it  attacked  by  the  Germans.  More- 
over, the  fierce  repression  which  was  practised 
by  the  Spanish  Inquisition  must  have  had  its 
effect.  Lecky  formed  the  opinion  that  no  new 
idea  could  survive  in  the  teeth  of  really  deter- 
mined persecution  ;  and  the  history  of  religion  in 
Spain  and  France  seems  to  bear  him  out. 

However,  the  old  war-horse  in  his  retirement 
snuffed  the  battle  and  the  joyous  smell  of  the 
burnings,  and  stoutly  urged  on  the  Inquisitors, 
at  whatever  cost  to  his  own  quiet.  Spain  re- 
mained diligently  Roman  Catholic  at  the  orders 
of  the  Holy  Roman  Emperor  and  his  son  Philip  ; 
and  at  this  moment,  when  Charles  was  so  urgently 
longing  for  peace  and  retirement,  English  Mary, 
his  cousin  and  daughter-in-law,  in  whose  interests 
he  had  loyally  braved  God,  man,  and  Pope,  lost 
Calais ;  the  French,  under  the  Duke  of  Guise,  took 
it  from  her.  She  might  well  grieve  and  say  the 
name  would  be  found  written  on  her  heart ;  she 

105 


POST    MORTEM 

but  echoed  the  feelings  of  her  beloved  Emperor. 
For  weeks  he  mumbled  with  toothless  jaws  the 
agony  of  his  soul  over  this  crowning  misfortune, 
and  from  this  he  never  really  recovered.  Already 
how  had  the  times  changed  since  the  Spanish 
infantry  had  overrun  Europe  at  his  command  ! 

But  he  could  do  nothing ;  he  had  abdicated. 
That  iron  hand  was  now  so  crippled  with  gout 
that  it  could  hardly  even  open  an  envelope,  had 
to  sign  its  letters  with  a  seal,  and  constantly  held 
a  tiny  chafing-dish  to  keep  itself  warm.  Charles 
sat  shivering  and  helpless,  wrapped  in  a  great 
eiderdown  cloak  even  in  midsummer ;  his  eyes 
fell  on  the  portrait  of  his  beloved  wife  and  of 
that  plain  Mary  who  had  wished  to  marry  him, 
and  on  several  favourite  pictures  by  Titian.  He 
listened  to  the  singing  of  the  friars,  and  was 
resentful  of  the  slightest  wrong  note,  for  he  had 
an  exceedingly  acute  musical  ear.  The  good 
fathers,  in  their  attempts  to  entertain  him, 
brought  famous  preachers  to  preach  to  him  ;  he 
listened  dutifully — he,  whose  lightest  word  had 
once  shaken  Europe,  but  who  now  could  hardly 
mumble  in  a  slurring  voice  !  And  in  spite  of 
the  protests  of  Quixada  he  heroically  sat  down 
to  eat  himself  to  death.  It  has  been  said  that 
marriage  for  an  old  man  is  merely  a  pleasant  way 
of  committing  suicide ;  it  is  doubtful  whether 

1 06 


THE    EMPEROR     CHARLES    V 

Charles  enjoyed  his  chosen  method  of  self- 
poisoning,  for  he  had  lost  the  sense  of  taste,  and 
no  food  could  be  too  richly  seasoned  for  his  tired 
palate.  Vast  quantities  of  beef,  mutton,  venison, 
ham,  and  highly  flavoured  sausages  went  past 
those  toothless  jaws,  washed  down  by  the  richest 
wines,  the  heaviest  beers ;  the  local  hidalgoes 
quickly  discovered  that  to  reach  the  Emperor's 
heart  all  they  had  to  do  was  to  appeal  to  his 
stomach,  so  they  poured  in  upon  him  every  kind 
of  rich  dainty,  to  the  despair  of  Quixada,  who 
did  his  best  to  protect  his  master.  "  Really," 
said  he,  "  kings  seem  to  think  that  their  stomachs 
are  not  made  like  other  men's  !  " 

He  sometimes  used  to  go  riding,  but  one  day, 
when  he  was  mounting  his  pony,  he  was  suddenly 
seized  with  an  attack  of  giddiness  so  severe  that 
he  nearly  fell  into  the  arms  of  Quixada,  so  that 
the  Emperor,  who  had  once  upon  a  time  been 
the  beau  ideal  of  a  light  cavalryman,  had  to  toil 
about  heavily  on  foot  in  the  woods,  and  to 
strive  to  hold  his  gun  steadily  enough  to  shoot  a 
wood-pigeon. 

He  spent  his  spare  time  watching  men  lay  out 
for  him  new  parterres  and  planting  trees ;  man 
began  with  a  garden,  and  in  sickness  and  sorrow 
ends  with  one.  The  Earth-Mother  is  the  one 
friend  that  never  deserts  us. 

107 


POST    MORTEM 

For  some  time  he  took  a  daily  dose  of  senna, 
which  was  probably  the  best  thing  he  could  have 
taken  in  the  absence  of  Epsom  salts,  but  nothing 
could  get  rid  of  the  enormous  amount  of  rich 
food  that  poured  down  his  gullet.  He  was 
always  thinking  of  death,  and  there  seems  to  be 
little  doubt  that  he  really  did  rehearse  his  own 
funeral.  He  held  a  great  and  solemn  procession, 
catafalque  and  all,  and,  kneeling  in  front  of  the 
altar,  handed  to  the  officiating  friar  a  taper, 
which  was  symbolical  of  his  own  soul.  He  then 
sat  during  the  afternoon  in  the  hot  sun,  and 
it  was  thought  that  he  caught  a  feverish  chill, 
for  he  took  to  his  bed  and  never  left  it  alive ;  for 
hours  he  held  the  portrait  of  Isabella  in  his  hands, 
recalling  her  fresh  young  beauty ;  he  clasped  to 
his  bosom  the  crucifix  which  he  had  taken  from 
her  dead  fingers  just  before  they  had  become 
stiff.  Then  came  the  fatal  headache  and  vomit- 
ing which  so  often  usher  in  the  close  of  chronic 
Bright's  disease.  We  are  told  that  he  lay  un- 
conscious, holding  his  wife's  crucifix,  till  he  said : 
"  Lord,  I  am  coming  to  Thee  !  "  His  hand 
relaxed — was  the  motor-centre  becoming  cedema- 
tous  ? — and  a  bishop  held  the  crucifix  before  his 
dying  eyes.  Charles  sighed,  "  Aye — Jesus !  "  and 
died.  Whether  or  no  he  died  so  soon  after 
saying  these  things  as  the  good  friar  would  have 

108 


THE    EMPEROR    CHARLES    V 

us  believe,  it  is  certain  that  his  end  was  edifying 
and  pious,  and  such  as  he  would  have  wished. 

The  great  interest  of  Charles  V  to  a  doctor, 
now  that  the  questions  over  which  he  struggled 
so  fiercely  are  settled,  is  that  we  can  seldom  trace 
so  well  in  any  historical  character  the  course  of 
the  disease  from  which  he  died.  If  Charles  had 
been  content  to  live  on  milky  food  and  drink  less 
it  is  probable  that  he  would  have  lived  for  years ; 
he  might  have  yielded  to  the  constant  entreaties 
of  his  friends  and  resumed  the  imperial  crown ; 
he  might  have  taken  into  his  strong  hands  the 
guidance  of  Spain  and  the  Netherlands  that  was 
overwhelming  Philip  ;  his  calm  good  sense  might 
have  averted  the  rising  flood  that  ultimately 
led  to  the  revolt  of  the  Netherlands ;  possibly  he 
might  even  have  averted  the  Spanish  Armada, 
though  it  seems  improbable  that  he  could  have 
lived  thirty  years.  But  Spain  might  have  avoided 
that  arrogant  behaviour  which  has  since  that  day 
caused  so  many  of  her  troubles ;  with  the  substi- 
tution of  Philip  for  Charles  at  that  critical  time 
she  took  a  wrong  turning  from  which  she  has 
never  since  recovered. 

The  death  of  Charles  V  caused  an  extraordinary 
sensation  in  Europe — even  greater  than  the 
sensation  caused  by  his  abdication.  Immense 
memorial  services  were  held  all  over  the  Empire ; 

109 


POST    MORTEM 

people  wondered  how  they  were  ever  to  recover 
from  the  loss.  Stout  old  Quixada  said  boldly 
that  Charles  V  was  the  greatest  man  that  ever 
had  been  or  ever  would  be  in  the  world.  If 
we  differ  from  him,  at  all  events  his  opinion  helps 
us  to  appreciate  the  extraordinary  impression  that 
Charles  had  made  upon  his  time,  and  it  is  now 
generally  agreed  that  he  was  the  greatest  man  of 
the  sixteenth  century,  which  was  so  prodigal 
of  remarkable  men.  Possibly  William  the  Silent 
might  be  thought  still  greater ;  but  he  was  much 
less  resplendent ;  he  lacked  the  knightly  glamour 
that  surrounded  the  head  of  the  Holy  Roman 
Emperor ;  he  wore  no  Golden  Fleece ;  no  storied 
centuries  fluttered  over  his  head.  Yet,  if  we 
come  to  seek  a  cause  for  this  immense  impression, 
it  is  not  easy  to  find.  There  is  no  doubt  that  he 
was  a  stout  defender  of  the  old  religion  at  a 
time  when  it  sorely  needed  defenders,  and  to  that 
extent  Romance  broods  over  his  memory — the 
romance  of  things  that  are  old.  He  was  a  man 
of  remarkable  energy,  and  a  great  soldier  at  a 
time  when  soldiering  was  not  distinguished  by 
genius.  He  appears  to  have  had  great  personal 
charm,  though  I  can  find  few  sayings  attributed 
to  him  by  which  we  can  judge  the  source  of  that 
charm.  There  is  nothing  in  his  history  like  the 
gay  insouciance,  the  constant  little  personal 

no 


THE    EMPEROR    CHARLES    V 

letters  to  friends,  of  Henri  Quatre ;  things  with 
Charles  V  seem  to  have  been  rather  serious  and 
legal  than  friendly.  He  was  fond  of  simple  joys, 
like  watchmaking,  and  he  got  a  remarkable 
clockmaker,  one  Torriano,  to  accompany  him  to 
Yuste  to  amuse  his  last  months.  He  left  behind 
him  a  great  many  watches,  and  naturally  the 
story  grew  that  he  had  said  :  "  If  I  cannot  even 
get  my  watches  to  agree,  how  can  I  expect  my 
subjects  to  follow  one  religion  ?  "  But  it  is  prob- 
able that  this  pretty  story  is  quite  apocryphal ; 
it  is  certainly  very  unlike  Charles's  strongly 
religious — not  to  say  bigoted — character.  He 
was  proud  and  autocratic,  yet  could  unbend, 
and  the  friars  of  Yuste  found  him  a  good  friend. 
The  boys  of  the  neighbouring  village  used  to 
rob  his  orchard,  much  to  the  disgust  of  the 
Emperor ;  he  set  the  police  on  their  track,  but 
died  before  the  case  came  up  for  trial.  After 
his  death  it  was  found  that  he  had  left  instructions 
that  the  fines  which  he  expected  to  receive  from 
the  naughty  little  ragamuffins  were  to  be  given 
to  the  poor  of  their  village.  Among  these 
naughty  little  boys  was  probably  young  Don 
John  of  Austria,  whom  Quixada  had  brought  to 
see  his  supposed  father  ;  and  it  is  said  that  Charles 
acknowledged  him  before  he  died. 

Lastly,  Charles  had  the  inestimable  advantage 
in 


POST    MORTEM 

of  being  depicted  by  one  of  the  greatest  artists  of 
all  time.  It  is  impossible  to  look  upon  his  sad 
and  thoughtful  face,  as  drawn  by  the  great 
Titian,  without  sympathy.  The  strong,  if  under- 
hung, jaw  which  he  bequeathed  to  his  descendants 
and  is  still  to  be  seen  in  King  Alfonso  of  Spain  ; 
the  wide-set  and  thoughtful  eyes ;  the  care-worn 
furrowed  brow ;  the  expression  of  energy  and 
calm  wisdom  :  all  these  belonged  to  a  great  man. 

Two  hundred  years  after  he  died,  when  his 
body  had  long  been  removed  to  the  Escorial 
where  it  now  lies  in  solemn  company  with  the 
bodies  of  many  other  Spanish  monarchs,  a  strange 
fate  allowed  a  visiting  Scotsman  to  view  it. 
Even  after  that  great  lapse  of  time  it  was,  though 
mummified,  little  affected  by  decay  ;  there  were 
still  on  his  winding-sheet  the  sprigs  of  thyme 
which  his  friends  had  placed  there ;  and  the 
grave  and  stately  features  as  painted  by  Titian 
were  still  vividly  recognizable. 

We  should  be  quite  within  the  bounds  of  reason 
in  saying  that  Charles  V  was  the  greatest  man 
between  Charlemagne  and  Napoleon.  He  was 
less  knightly  than  Charlemagne — probably  be- 
cause we  know  more  about  him ;  he  had  no 
Austerlitz  nor  Jena  to  his  credit — nor  any  Moscow; 
but  in  devouring  energy  and  vastness  of  concep- 
tion there  was  little  to  choose  between  the  three. 

112 


THE    EMPEROR    CHARLES    V 

Charlemagne  left  behind  him  the  Holy  Roman 
Empire  with  its  enormous  mediaeval  significance, 
whereas  Napoleon  and  Charles  V  left  compara- 
tively little  or  nothing.  He  was  the  heroic 
defender  of  a  losing  cause,  and  wears  the  romantic 
halo  that  such  heroes  wear ;  yet  whatever  halo 
of  chivalry,  romance,  and  religious  fervour 
surrounds  his  name,  it  is  difficult  to  forget  that 
he  deliberately  ate  himself  to  death.  An  ignoble 
end. 


113 


Don  John  of  Austria,  Cervantes, 
and  Don  Quixote 

TWO  great  alliances,  of  which  you  will  read 
nothing  in  ordinary  history- books,  have  pre- 
eminently influenced  mankind.  The  first  was 
between  the  Priest  and  the  Woman,  and  seems 
to  have  begun  in  Neolithic  times,  when  Woman 
was  looked  upon  as  a  witch  with  some  uncanny 
power  of  bewitching  honest  men  and  somehow 
bringing  forth  useless  brats  for  no  earthly  reason 
that  could  be  discovered.  From  this  alliance 
grew  the  worship  of  Motherhood,  and  hence  many 
more  modern  religions.  When,  on  Sundays,  you 
see  ranks  of  men  in  stiff  collars  sitting  in  church 
though  they  would  much  rather  be  playing  tennis, 
you  know  that  they  are  expiating  in  misery  the 
spankings  inflicted  by  their  Neolithic  ancestors 
perhaps  10,000  years  ago  :  their  wives  have  driven 
them  to  church,  and  Woman,  as  usual,  has  had 
the  last  word. 

But  the  other  alliance,  that  between  Man  and 
Horse,  has  been  a  more  terrible  affair  altogether, 
and  has  led  to  Chivalry,  the  cult  of  the  Man  on 
the  Horse,  of  the  Aristocrat,  of  the  Rich  Man. 
Though  the  Romans  had  a  savage  aristocracy 

114 


DON    JOHN    OF    AUSTRIA 

they  never  had  Chivalry,  probably  because  they 
never  feared  the  cavalryman.  The  Roman  legion, 
in  its  open  order,  could  face  any  cavalry,  because 
the  legionary  knew  that  the  man  by  his  side 
would  not  run  away ;  if  he,  being  a  misbegotten 
son  of  fear,  did  so,  then  the  man  behind  him  would 
take  advantage  of  the  plungings  of  the  horse  to 
drive  his  javelin  into  the  silly  animal  while  he 
himself  would  use  his  sword  upon  the  rider.  It 
was  left  for  the  Gran  Catalan  Company  of  Spain 
and  the  Scots  under  Wallace  and  Bruce  to  prove 
in  mediaeval  times  that  the  infantryman  would 
beat  the  cavalryman. 

The  Romans  never  adopted  the  artificial  rules 
of  Chivalry ;  it  was  the  business  of  the  legions 
to  win  battles — to  make  money  over  the  business 
if  they  could,  but  first  and  foremost  to  win  battles. 
They  had  no  ideas  about  the  "  point  of  honour  " 
which  has  cost  so  many  a  man  his  life.  The  main 
thing  was  that  the  legions  must  not  run  away ; 
it  was  for  the  enemy  to  do  the  running.  To  the 
Romans  it  never  seems  to  have  occurred  that 
Woman  was  a  creature  to  be  sentimentally  wor- 
shipped, or  that  it  really  mattered  very  much 
whether  you  spoke  of  a  brace  of  grouse  or  a  couple, 
of  a  mob  of  hounds  or  a  pack  ;  but  to  the  Knight 
of  Chivalry  these  were  vital  matters. 

With  Charlemagne  and  his  Franks  a  new  civili- 
"5 


POST    MORTEM 

zation  came  into  full  flower ;  and  Chivalry — 
the  "  worship  of  God  and  the  ladies,"  to  quote 
Gibbon's  ironic  phrase — swayed  the  minds  of 
Northern  Europe  for  centuries. 

Chivalry  has  been  much  misunderstood  in 
modern  times.  We  probably  see  Chaucer's 
"  varry  parfit  gentil  knight  "  as  poets  and  idealists 
would  have  us  see  him  and  not  as  he  really  was. 
There  was  no  sentimentality  about  your  knight. 
"  Gentle  "  did  not  mean  "  kind  "  ;  it  meant 
really  "  son  of  a  landowner."  A  knight  had  to 
do  things  in  the  manner  considered  fashionable 
by  his  class ;  he  had  to  call  things  precisely  by 
the  names  taught  him  by  some  older  knight — 
his  tutor  and  university  combined ;  the  slightest 
slip  and  he  would  be  considered  as  the  mediaeval 
equivalent  of  our  "  bounder  "  ;  he  had  to  wear 
the  proper  clothes  at  the  proper  time,  and  to 
obey  certain  arbitrary — often  quite  artificial — 
"  manners  and  rules  of  good  society,"  or  he  would 
be  considered  lacking  in  "  good  form  "  ;  he  must 
recognize  the  rights  of  the  rich  as  against  the 
poor,  but  it  did  not  follow  that  he  should  recog- 
nize any  rights  of  the  poor  as  against  the  rich. 
Even  Bayard,  knight  sans  $eur  et  sans  reprocbe, 
would  probably  have  seemed  a  most  offensive 
fellow  to  a  twentieth- century  gentleman  if  he, 
with  his  modern  ideas,  could  have  met  the  Cheva- 

116 


DON    JOHN    OF    AUSTRIA 

Her ;  and  the  sensation  caused  by  the  kindly 
conduct  of  Sir  Philip  Sidney  in  handing  his  drink 
of  water  to  a  wounded  soldier  at  Zutphen  shows 
how  rare  such  a  thing  must  have  been.  It  was 
done  a  thousand  times  in  the  late  war,  and 
nobody  thought  anything  about  it.  To  the 
extent  of  the  sensation  of  Zutphen  Chivalry  had 
debased  mankind  ;  the  evil  that  it  did  lived  after 
it.  It  did  good  in  teaching  the  world  manners 
and  a  certain  standard  of  honourable  conduct ; 
it  did  not  teach  morality,  or  real  religion,  or  real 
kindness.  These  things  were  left  for  the  poor  to 
teach  the  rich. 

This  unsentimental  harangue  leads  us  to  "  the 
last  knight  of  Europe  " — Don  John  of  Austria, 
around  whose  name  there  still  shines  a  glamour  of 
romance  like  the  sound  of  a  trumpet.  About 
nine  years  after  the  death  of  the  Empress  Isabel, 
Charles  V  went  a-wandering,  still  disconsolate, 
through  his  mighty  empire.  He  was  sad  and 
lonely,  for  it  was  about  the  time  when  the  arterio- 
sclerosis which  was  to  kill  him  began  to  depress 
his  spirits.  At  Ratisbon,  where  he  lay  preparing 
for  the  great  campaign  which  was  to  end  in  the 
glorious  victory  of  Muhlburg,  they  brought  to 
him  to  cheer  him  up  a  sweet  singer  and  pretty 
girl  named  Barbara  Blomberg,  daughter  of  a 
noble  family.  She  sang  to  the  Emperor  to  such 

117 


POST    MORTEM 

purpose  that  he  became  her  lover,  and  in  due 
course  Don  John  was  born.  By  this  time  Charles 
had  discovered  that  his  pretty  nightingale  was  a 
petulant,  extravagant,  sensual  young  woman,  by 
no  means  the  sort  of  mother  a  wise  man  would 
select  to  bring  up  his  son ;  so  he  took  the  boy 
from  her  care  and  sent  him  to  a  poor  Spanish 
family  near  Madrid.  Whatever  Charles  V  did 
in  his  private  life  seems  to  have  borne  the  stamp 
of  wisdom  and  kindness,  however  little  we  may 
agree  with  some  of  his  public  actions.  Probably 
Barbara  did  not  object ;  it  must  have  been  rather 
alarming  for  the  flighty  young  person  to  have  the 
tremendous  personality  of  the  great  Emperor 
constantly  overlooking  her  folly ;  she  married  a 
man  named  Kugel,  ruined  him  by  her  extrava- 
gance, and  died  penniless  save  for  an  annuity  of 
200  florins  left  her  by  the  Emperor  in  his  will. 
I  read  a  touch  of  sentimentality  into  Charles's 
character.  It  is  difficult  to  wonder  more  at  his 
memory  of  his  old  light-of-love  in  his  will,  or  at 
his  accurate  and  uncomplimentary  estimate  of 
her  value.  Probably  he  was  rather  ashamed  of 
some  of  his  memories ;  so  far  as  I  can  find  out 
there  were  not  many  such,  and  he  wished  to  hush 
up  the  whole  incident.  Probably  Barbara  was 
not  worth  much  more  than  200  florins  per  annum. 
Still  keeping  secret  the  parentage  of  the  child, 
118 


DON    JOHN    OF    AUSTRIA 

whom  he  called  Jeronimo  after  his  favourite 
saint,  Charles  handed  him  over  to  the  care  of 
his  steward,  Don  Luis  de  Quixada,  asking  that 
Maddalena  his  wife  should  regard  Jeronimo  as 
her  own  son.  Quixada  had  not  been  married 
very  long,  and  naturally  Maddalena  wondered 
whence  came  this  cheery  little  boy  of  which 
Quixada  seemed  so  fond ;  nor  would  he  gratify 
her  curiosity,  but  hushed  her  with  dark  sayings ; 
she  kissed  the  baby  in  public,  but  wept  in  secret 
for  jealousy  of  the  wicked  female  who  had  evi- 
dently borne  a  son  in  secret  to  her  husband  before 
he  had  married  his  lawful  wife.  One  night  the 
castle  caught  fire,  and  Quixada,  flower  of  Spain's 
chivalry  though  he  was,  rescued  the  child  before 
he  returned  to  save  Maddalena.  It  is  wrong  to 
call  him  a  "  grandee  of  Spain,"  for  "  grandee  " 
is  a  title  much  the  same  as  our  "  duke  " ;  had 
he  been  a  grandee  I  understand  that  his  true 
name  would  have  been  "  Senor  Don  Quixada, 
duca  e  grandi  de  Espafia."  One  would  think 
that  this  action  would  have  added  fuel  to  Madda- 
lena's  jealousy,  but  she  believed  her  husband  when 
he  told  her  that  Jeronimo  was  a  child  of  such 
surpassing  importance  to  the  world  that  it  had 
been  necessary  for  a  Quixada  to  save  him  even 
before  he  saved  his  wife,  and  quite  probably  she 
then,  for  the  first  time,  began  to  suspect  his  real 

119 


POST    MORTEM 

parentage.  Charles  V  was  then  the  great  Catho- 
lic hero,  and  the  whole  Catholic  world  was 
weeping  for  his  abdication.  So  Maddalena  devel- 
oped a  strong  love  for  Jeronimo,  which  died  only 
with  herself.  She  lived  for  a  great  many  years 
and  bore  no  children  ;  Jeronimo  remained  to  her 
as  her  only  son.  He  always  looked  upon  her  as 
his  mother,  and  throughout  his  life  wrote  to  her 
letters  which  are  still  delightful  to  read ;  what- 
ever duty  he  had,  in  whatever  part  of  the  world, 
he  always  found  time  to  write  to  Maddalena  in 
the  midst  of  it,  and,  like  a  real  mother,  she  kept 
the  letters. 

It  is  said  that  Charles  when  dying  kissed 
Jeronimo  and  called  him  son ;  he  certainly 
provided  for  him  in  his  will.  After  his  death 
Quixada  at  first  tried  to  keep  the  matter  secret, 
but  afterwards  sent  him  to  live  at  the  Court  with 
his  brother  Philip  II,  who  treated  him  as  he 
treated  everybody  else  but  Charles  V — "  the  one 
wise  and  strong  man  whom  he  never  suspected, 
never  betrayed,  and  never  undervalued,"  as 
Stirling-Maxwell  says.  Jeronimo  was  then  openly 
acknowledged  by  Philip  as  Charles's  natural  son, 
being  called  Don  John  of  Austria.  Philip's  own 
son,  a  youth  of  small  intelligence,  who  afterwards 
died  under  restraint — Philip  was  of  course  accused 
of  poisoning  him — once  called  him  bdtarde  et 

120 


DON    JOHN    OF    AUSTRIA 

fits  de  putaine — bastard  and  strumpet's  son.  The 
curly-headed  little  boy  kept  his  hands  by  his  side 
and  quietly  replied,  "  Possibly  so  ;  but  at  any 
rate  I  had  a  better  father  than  you  !  "  Even  by 
that  time  he  had  begun  to  see  that  his  mother 
was  no  saint,  and  could  tell  between  a  great 
man  and  a  little.  Philip  could  never  forgive 
Don  John  for  being  a  gallant  youth  such  as  his 
father  had  hoped  that  Philip  would  be  and  was 
not ;  and  Don  John,  conscious  of  his  mighty 
ancestry,  ardently  longed  to  be  a  real  gallant  King 
of  Romance,  such  as  his  father  had  hoped  Philip 
would  become.  Charles,  in  his  will,  had  expressed 
a  hope  that  he  would  be  a  monk,  and  Philip 
actively  fought  for  this,  though  Charles  had  left 
the  decision  to  Don  John's  own  wishes.  In 
Philip's  eyes  no  doubt  a  gay  and  bold  younger 
brother  would  be  less  dangerous  to  the  State — 
i.e.  to  Philip — as  a  monk  than  as  a  soldier ;  yet 
is  it  not  possible  that  Philip  only  thought  he  was 
loyally  helping  to  follow  out  his  father's  wishes  ? 
He  was  generally  a  "  slave  of  duty,"  though  his 
slavery  often  led  him  into  tortuous  courses.  The 
Church  is  a  great  leveller,  and  religion  is  a  pacifying 
and  amaranthine  repast.  But  no  monkish  cowl 
would  suit  Don  John  ;  his  locks  were  fair  and 
hyacinthine,  and  no  tonsure  should  degrade  them. 
After  a  struggle  Philip  yielded,  and  Don  John 

121 


POST    MORTEM 

was  sent  in  command  of  the  galleys  against  the 
Algerian  pirates.  He  did  well,  and  next  year  he 
commanded  the  land  forces  against  the  rebel 
Moriscoes  of  Granada.  Here,  in  his  very  first 
battle,  he  lost  his  foster-father  and  mentor, 
Quixada,  who  died  a  knightly  death  in  rallying 
the  army  when  it  meditated  flight.  A  true  knight 
of  Spain,  this  Quixada,  from  the  time  when  he 
took  the  little  son  of  imperial  majesty  under  his 
care  till  the  time  when  he  gave  up  his  life  lest 
that  little  son,  now  become  a  radiant  young  man, 
should  suffer  dishonour  by  his  army  running  away. 
All  Spain,  from  Philip  downward,  mourned  the 
death  of  this  most  valiant  gentleman,  which  is 
another  thing  that  makes  me  think  that  Philip's 
conduct  towards  Don  John  was  not  quite  so 
black  as  it  has  been  painted.  He  could  certainly 
recognize  worth  when  it  did  not  conflict  with 
his  own  interests — that  is  to  say,  with  the  interests 
of  Spain  as  he  saw  them.  Quixada's  action  in 
concealing  the  parentage  of  Don  John  from  his 
wife  was  just  the  sort  of  loyal  and  unwise  thing 
that  might  have  been  expected  from  a  chivalrous 
knight,  using  the  word  "  chivalrous "  as  it  is 
commonly  understood  to-day ;  a  dangerous  thing, 
for  many  a  woman  would  not  have  had  sufficient 
faith  in  her  husband  to  believe  him  when  he  sud- 
denly produced  an  unexplained  and  charming 

IZ2 


DON    JOHN    OF    AUSTRIA 

little  boy  soon  after  he  was  married.  Maddalena 
de  Ulloa  acted  like  an  angel ;  Don  Quixada  acted 
like — Don  Quixote  !  Now  we  see  why  I  asked  you 
particularly  to  note  the  name  when  we  first  came 
across  it  in  the  essay  on  Charles  V.  Whence  did 
Cervantes  get  the  idea  for  Don  Quixote  if  not 
from  the  foster-father  of  Don  John  ? 

Two  years  later  he  got  the  real  chance  of  his 
life.  The  Turks,  having  recovered  from  the 
shock  inflicted  on  them  by  Charles  V,  captured 
Cyprus  and  seemed  about  to  conquer  all  the 
little  republics  of  the  Adriatic.  The  Pope,  Pius 
V,  organized  the  "  Holy  League  "  between  Spain 
and  Venice,  between  the  most  fiercely  monarchical 
of  countries  and  the  most  republican  of  cities ; 
and  Don  John  was  appointed  Admiral-in-chief 
of  the  combined  fleets  of  the  "  Last  Crusade," 
as  the  enterprise  is  called  from  its  mingled  gallan- 
try and  apparent  unity  and  idealism.  For  the 
last  time  men  stood  spellbound  as  Christendom 
attacked  Mohammed. 

Strong  gongs  groaning  as  the  guns  boom  far, 
And  Don  John  of  Austria  is  going  to  the  war, 

sings  Chesterton  in  Lepanto,  one  of  the  most 
stirring  battle-poems  since  the  Iliad. 

Sudden  and  still — hurrah  ! 
Bolt  from  Iberia  ! 
Don  John  of  Austria 
Is  gone  by  Alcalar. 
123 


POST    MORTEM 

It  is  difficult  for  us  nowadays  to  realize  the 
terror  of  the  Turks  that  possessed  Europe  in  the 
sixteenth  century ;  mothers  quieted  their  children 
by  the  dreadful  name,  and  escaped  sailors  recounted 
indescribable  horrors  in  every  little  seaport  from 
Albania  to  Scotland.  Many  thousands  of  Chris- 
tian slaves  laboured  at  the  oars  of  the  war- 
galleys,  not,  as  is  generally  thought,  as  hostages 
that  these  galleys  might  not  be  sunk.  They 
were  the  private  property  of  the  captains,  who 
treated  their  own  property  better  than  they 
treated  the  property  of  the  Grand  Turk.  Thus, 
it  was  not  the  worst  fate  for  a  Christian  galley- 
slave  to  serve  in  the  galley  of  his  owner.  He 
would  not  be  exposed  to  reckless  sinking  at  any 
rate ;  if  the  galley  sank,  it  would  be  because  the 
owner  could  not  help  it.  Nor  would  he  be  likely 
to  be  impaled  upon  a  red-hot  poker  or  thrown 
upon  butchers'  hooks,  as  might  happen  to  the 
slave  of  the  Sultan.  So  it  would  seem  that  some 
unnecessary  pity  has  been  spilt  upon  the  slaves 
of  the  galleys.  Their  lot  might  have  been  worse, 
to  put  things  in  their  most  favourable  light. 

King  Philip's  in  his  closet  with  the  Fleece  about  his  neck, 

(Don  John  of  Austria  is  armed  upon  the  deck.) 

Christian   captives  sick  and   sunless,   all  a   labouring  race 

repines 

Like  a  race  in  sunken  cities,  like  a  nation  in  the  mines. 
(But  Don  John  of  Austria  has  burst  the  battle  line  !  ") 
I24 


DON    JOHN    OF    AUSTRIA 

Don  John  pounding  from  the  slaughter-painted  poop, 
Purpling  all  the  ocean  like  a  bloody  pirate's  sloop. 
Vivat  Hispania! 
Domino  gloria  ! 
Don  John  of  Austria 
Has  set  his  people  free  ! 

This  "  last  crusade  "  culminated  in  the  great 
battle  of  Lepanto,  in  1571,  where  the  Turks  lost 
about  35,000  men  and  their  whole  battle  fleet 
except  forty  galleys  which  crawled  home  disabled. 
There  was  a  good  deal  of  discussion  about  the 
action  of  an  Italian  galley  under  Doria,  but 
Cervantes,  in  Don  Quixote,  seems  to  have  been 

'  K> 

quite  satisfied  with  it.  No  such  wonderful  battle 
was  fought  at  sea  until  the  Nile  itself,  which  is 
the  most  perfect  of  all  sea-fights. 

The  sensation  throughout  Europe  was  indes- 
cribable. Everything  helped  to  make  the  victory 
romantic — the  gallant  young  bastard  admiral 
compared  with  the  unattractive  king  under  whom 
he  served,  the  sudden  relief  from  terrible  danger, 
and  the  victory  of  Christ  over  Mahound,  so 
dramatic  and  complete,  all  combined  to  stir  the 
pulses  of  Christendom  as  they  had  never  been 
stirred  before — even  in  the  earlier  Crusades  when 
the  very  tomb  of  Christ  was  the  point  under 
dispute.  Men  said  that  Mahound,  when  he 
heard  the  guns  of  Don  John,  wept  upon  the  knees 
of  his  houris  in  his  Paradise ;  black  Azrael,  the 

125 


POST    MORTEM 

angel  of   death,   had   turned   traitor   upon   his 
worshippers. 

This  glorious  victory  was  won  largely  by  the 
extraordinary  daring  and  inspiring  personality 
of  the  Emperor's  bastard,  who  now,  at  the 
summit  of  human  glory,  saw  himself  condemned 
to  retire  into  the  position  of  a  subject.  The  rest 
of  the  life  of  the  "  man  who  would  be  king  "  is 
the  record  of  thwarted  ambition  and  disappointed 
hopes.  Spain  and  Venice  quarrelled,  and  Lepan- 
to  was"  not  followed  up ;  Philip  lost  the  chance 
of  retrieving  1453  and  of  changing  the  history 
of  Europe  in  Spain's  favour  ever  since.  Christian 
set  once  more  to  killing  Christian  in  the  old 
melancholy  way ;  Venice  made  peace  with  the 
Sultan,  and  Don  John  set  about  carving  out  a 
kingdom  for  himself.  In  dreams  he  saw  himself 
monarch  of  Albania,  or  of  the  Morea ;  and  in 
body  he  actually  recaptured  Tunis,  once  so 
gloriously  held  by  his  father.  But  Philip  would 
not  support  him  and  he  had  to  retire.  Cervantes, 
in  Don  Quixote,  evidently  thinks  Philip  quite 
right.  Tunis  was  a  "  sponge  for  extravagance, 
and  a  moth  for  expense ;  and  as  for  holding  it 
as  a  monument  to  Charles  V,  why,  what  monu- 
ment was  necessary  to  glory  so  eternal  ?  "  Don 
John  returned  home  without  a  kingdom  to  his 
brother,  who  no  doubt  let  him  see  that  he  was 

126 


DON    JOHN    OF    AUSTRIA 

becoming  rather  a  nuisance  with  his  expensive 
dreams.  In  1576  he  was  placated  by  an  appoint- 
ment as  Governor-General  to  the  Netherlands, 
where  he  quickly  found  himself  confronted  by  a 
much  greater,  though  less  romantic,  man  than 
himself.  William  of  Orange  was  now  the  unques- 
tioned leader  of  the  revolt  of  the  Dutch  against  the 
Roman  Catholic  power  of  Philip,  and  when  Don 
John  reached  the  Netherlands  he  found  himself 
Governor  with  no  subjects.  After  fruitless  nego- 
tiations he  retired,  a  very  ill  man,  to  Namur  ;  he 
had  become  thin  and  pale,  and  lost  his  vivacity. 
His  heart  was  not  in  his  task.  He  was  meditating 
the  extraordinary  "  empresa  de  Inglaterra  " — 
the  "  enterprise  of  England  " — which  now  seems 
to  us  so  fantastic.  The  Spanish  army  was  to 
evacuate  the  Netherlands  and  to  be  rapidly  ferried 
across  to  Yorkshire ;  by  a  lightning  stroke  it 
was  to  release  Mary  Queen  of  Scots,  that  romantic 
Queen,  and  marry  her  to  Don  John,  the  romantic 
victor  of  Lepanto  ;  Elizabeth  was  to  be  slain,  and 
the  Pope  was  to  bless  the  union  of  romance  with 
romance.  But  Elizabeth  would  have  taken  a 
deal  of  slaying.  One  cannot  help  surmising  that 
Don  John  may  have  dreamed  this  fantasy  because 
he  had  been  educated  by  Quixada ;  it  was  a 
dream  that  might  have  passed  through  the  addled 
brain  of  Don  Quixote  himself.  The  victor  of 

127 


POST    MORTEM 

Lepanto  should  better  have  understood  the 
mighty  power  of  the  sea  ;  the  galleys  which  had 
done  so  well  in  the  Mediterranean  would  have 
been  worse  than  useless  in  the  North,  where  the 
storms  are  a  worse  enemy  than  the  Turks. 

But  Philip,  either  through  timidity,  or  jealousy, 
or  wisdom,  would  have  none  of  it ;  after  long 
delay  he  sent  an  important  force  to  the  Nether- 
lands under  the  command  of  Don  John's  cousin, 
Alexander  Farnese,  Prince  of  Parma,  the  greatest 
general  Spain  ever  produced.  Don  John  aban- 
doned his  dreams  to  fall  with  this  army  upon 
the  Protestants  at  Gemblours,  where  he,  or 
Farnese — opinions  differ — won  a  really  great 
victory,  the  last  that  was  to  honour  his  name. 

A  curious  incident  in  this  campaign  was  that 
the  Spaniards  were  attacked  by  a  small  Scottish 
force  at  a  place  called  Rejnements.  The  Scots- 
men began,  more  Scotorum,  by  singing  a  psalm. 
Having  thus  prepared  the  way  spiritually,  they 
prepared  it  physically  by  casting  off  their  clothes, 
and  to  the  horror  of  the  modest  Spaniards 
attacked  naked  with  considerable  success.  Many 
of  us,  no  doubt,  remember  how  the  Highlanders 
in  the  late  war  were  said  to  have  stained  their 
bodies  with  coffee  or  Condy's  fluid  and,  under 
cover  of  a  Birnam's  wood  composed  of  branches 
of  trees,  emulated  the  bold  Malcolm  and  Macduff 

128 


DON    JOHN    OF    AUSTRIA 

by  creeping  upon  the  Germans  attired  mainly 
in  their  boots  and  identity  disks ;  a  sparse  costume 
in  which  to  appear  before  nursing  sisters  should 
they  be  wounded.  I  had  the  honour  of  operating 
upon  one  hefty  gentleman  who  reached  the 
C.C.S.  in  this  attire,  sheltered  from  the  bitter  cold 
by  blankets  supplied  by  considerate  Australians 
in  the  field  ambulance.  We  from  a  southern 
land  considered  the  habit  more  suitable  for  the 
hardy  Scot  than  for  ourselves ;  though  we  remem- 
bered that  an  Australian  surgeon  at  Gallipoli, 
finding  that  his  dressings  had  run  short,  tore 
his  raiment  into  strips  and,  when  the  need  came, 
charged  the  Turks  berserk  attired  in  the  costume 
of  Adam  before  the  Fall.  But  we  did  not  remem- 
ber that  gallant  Scotsmen  had  done  something 
similar  in  1578.  No  doubt  the  sight  of  a  large 
man,  dressed  in  cannibal  costume  and  dancing 
horribly  on  the  parapet  while  he  poured  forth  a 
string  of  uncouth  Doric  imprecations,  led  to  the 
tale  that  the  British  Army  was  employing  African 
natives  to  devour  the  astonished  Bosche. 

Don  John  could  not  follow  up  the  victory  of 
Gemblours.  He  had  neither  money  nor  sufficient 
men ;  the  few  short  months  remaining  to  him 
were  spent  in  imploring  aid  from  his  brother. 
Philip  did  nothing ;  possibly  he  was  jealous  of 
Don  John ;  possibly  he  was  fully  occupied  over 

129  i 


POST    MORTEM 

the  miserable  affair  of  Antonio  Perez  and  the 
Princess  of  Eboli.  One  would  like  to  think  that 
he  had  lucid  intervals  in  which  he  recognized  the 
insensate  folly  of  the  whole  business ;  but  like 
his  father  he  was  spurred  on  by  his  conscience. 
In  addition  to  the  other  troubles  of  Don  Johjn 
his  army  began  to  waste  away  with  pestilence, 
no  doubt,  it  being  now  autumn,  with  typhoid, 
that  curse  of  armies  before  the  recent  discovery 
of  T.A.B.  inoculation.  Don  John  fell  sick,  in 
September,  1578,  of  a  fever,  but,  his  doctors 
considering  the  illness  trifling,  continued  to  work. 
One  Italian,  indeed,  said  that  he  would  die, 
whereas  another  sick  man,  believed  to  be  in  arti- 
culo  mortis,  would  recover.  The  guess  proved 
right,  and  when  Don  John  died  the  Italian 
surgeon's  fortune  was  made.  Thus  easily  are 
some  reputations  gained  in  our  profession  ;  it 
is  easier  to  make  a  reputation  than  to  keep 
it. 

For  nearly  three  weeks  Don  John  struggled  to 
work,  encouraged  by  his  physicians ;  there  came 
a  day,  towards  the  end  of  September,  when  he, 
being  already  much  wasted  by  his  illness,  was 
seized  by  a  most  violent  pain  and  immediately 
had  to  go  to  bed.  He  became  delirious,  and 
babbled  of  battle-fields  and  trumpet-calls ;  he 
gave  orders  to  imaginary  lines  of  battle ;  he 

130 


DON    JOHN    OF    AUSTRIA 

became  unconscious.  After  two  days  of  mut- 
tering delirium  he  awakened,  and,  as  he  was 
thought  to  be  in  extremis,  took  extreme  unction. 
Next  day  the  dying  flicker  continued,  and  he  heard 
the  priest  say  mass ;  though  his  sight  had  failed 
and  he  could  not  see,  he  had  himself  raised  in  the 
bed,  feebly  turned  his  head  towards  the  eleva- 
tion of  the  Host  and  adored  the  body  of  Christ 
with  his  last  glimmer  of  consciousness.  He  then 
fell  back  unconscious,  and  sank  into  a  state  of 
coma,  from  which  he  never  rallied.  In  all,  he 
had  been  ill  about  twenty-four  days. 

These  events  could  be  easily  explained  on  the 
supposition  that  this  young  man's  brave  life  was 
terminated  by  that  curse  of  young  soldiers — 
ruptured  typhoid  ulcer  in  ambulatory  typhoid 
fever.  His  army  was  dwindling  with  pestilence  ; 
he  himself  walked  about  feeling  feverish  and 
"  seedy  "  and  losing  weight  rapidly  for  a  fortnight ; 
he  was  just  at  the  typhoid  age,  in  the  typhoid 
time  of  the  year,  and  in  typhoid  conditions ; 
his  ulcer  burst,  causing  peritonitis ;  the  tremen- 
dous shock  of  the  rupture,  together  with  the 
toxaemia,  drove  him  delirious  and  then  uncon- 
scious ;  being  a  very  strong  young  man  he  woke 
up  again  as  the  first  shock  passed  away ;  as  the 
shock  passed  into  definite  peritonitis  unconscious- 
ness returned,  and  he  was  fortunate  in  being  able 


POST    MORTEM 

to  hear  his  last  mass  before  he  died.  I  see  no 
flaw  in  this  reasoning. 

The  rest  of  the  story  is  rather  quaint.  By 
next  spring  Philip  had  given  orders  for  the 
embalmed  body  to  be  brought  to  Spain,  and  it 
was  considered  rather  mean  of  him  that  the  body 
of  his  brother  was  to  be  brought  on  mule-back. 
But  Philip  was  at  his  wits'  end  for  money  to 
prosecute  the  war,  and  no  doubt  he  himself  looked 
upon  his  "  meanness  "  as  a  wise  economy.  The 
body  was  exhumed,  cut  into  three  pieces — appar- 
ently by  disjointing  it  at  the  hips — and  stuffed 
into  three  leather  bags  which  were  slung  on 
mule-back  in  a  pack-saddle.  When  it  came 
within  a  few  miles  of  the  Escorial  it  was  put 
together  again,  laid  upon  a  bier,  and  given  a 
noble  funeral  in  a  death-chamber  next  to  that 
which  had  been  reserved  for  the  great  Emperor 
his  father.  There  I  believe  it  still  lies,  the  winds 
of  the  Escorial  laughing  at  its  dreams  of  chival- 
rous glory. 

Philip,  suspicious  of  everybody  and  everything, 
had  given  orders  that,  should  Don  John  die,  his 
confessor  was  to  keep  an  accurate  record  of  the 
circumstances ;  and  it  is  from  the  report  of  this 
priest  that  the  above  account  has  been  drawn  by 
Stirling-Maxwell,  so  we  can  look  upon  it  as 
authoritative.  Philip  was  accused  of  poisoning 

132 


DON    JOHN    OF    AUSTRIA 

him,  and  for  a  moment  this  supposition  was  borne 
out  by  the  extreme  redness  of  the  intestines ; 
but  this  is  much  more  easily  explained  by  the 
peritonitis.  Again,  Philip's  enemies  have  said 
that  Don  John  died  of  a  broken  heart,  because 
the  priest  reported  that  one  side  of  his  heart  was 
dry  and  empty ;  but  this  too  is  quite  natural  if 
we  suppose  that  the  last  act  of  Don  John's  life 
was  for  his  heart  to  pump  its  blood  into  his  arteries, 
as  so  often  happens  in  death.  Young  men  do 
not  die  of  broken  hearts ;  "  Men  have  died  and 
worms  have  eaten  them — but  not  for  love  !  " 
as  Rosalind  says  in  her  sweet  cynicism.  In 
elderly  men  with  high  blood-pressures  it  is  quite 
possible  that  grief  and  worry  may  actually  cause 
the  heart  to  burst,  and  to  that  extent  novelists 
are  right  in  speaking  of  a  "  broken  heart."  Other- 
wise the  disease,  or  casualty,  is  unknown  to 
medicine.  No  amount  of  worry,  or  absence  of 
worry,  would  have  had  any  effect  upon  Don  John's 
typhoid  ulcer. 

Besides  the  suspicion  of  poisoning,  Don  John 
was  rumoured  to  have  died  of  the  "  French 
disease,"  even  the  name  of  the  lady  being  men- 
tioned. While  he  was  certainly  no  more  moral 
than  any  other  gay  and  handsome  young  prince 
of  his  time,  there  is  not  the  slightest  reason  for 
supposing  the  rumour  to  have  been  anything 

133 


POST    MORTEM 

but  folly.  Syphilis  does  not  kill  a  man  as  Don 
John  died,  while  ambulatory  typhoid  fever  most 
assuredly  does.  Therefore  the  lady  in  question 
must  remain  without  her  glory  so  far  as  this 
book  is  concerned,  though  her  name  has  survived, 
and  not  only  in  Spanish. 

Don  John  was  a  handsome  young  man,  graceful 
and  strong.  There  are  many  contemporary 
portraits  of  him,  perhaps  the  best  being  a  magni- 
ficent statue  at  Messina,  which  he  saved  from 
the  Turks  at  Lepanto.  He  had  frank  blue  eyes 
and  yellow  curls,  and  a  very  great  charm  of 
manner  ;  but  he  was  liable  to  attacks  of  violent 
pride  which  estranged  his  friends.  He  was  the 
darling  of  the  ladies,  and  was  esteemed  the  flower 
of  chivalry  in  his  day ;  but  William  of  Orange 
warned  his  Netherlanders  not  to  be  deceived  by 
his  appearance  ;  in  his  view  Philip  had  sent  a 
monster  of  cruelty  no  less  savage  than  himself. 
But  William  was  prejudiced,  and  Don  John  is 
still  one  of  the  great  romantic  figures  of  history. 
It  is  difficult  to  speculate  reasonably  on  what 
might  have  happened  if  he  had  not  died.  It  has 
been  thought  that  he  might  have  led  the  Armada, 
in  which  case  that  most  badly-managed  expedition 
would  at  least  have  been  well  led,  and  no  doubt 
England  would  have  had  a  more  determined 
struggle  ;  but  it  seems  to  me  more  likely  that 

134 


DON    JOHN    OF    AUSTRIA 

Don  John  and  Philip  would  have  quarrelled,  and 
that  Fortune  would  have  been  even  less  kind  to 
Spain  than  she  was.  Those  who  love  Spain 
must  be  on  the  whole  rather  glad  that  Don  John 
died  before  he  had  been  able  to  cause  more 
trouble  than  he  did.  It  is  difficult  to  agree 
entirely  with  those  who  would  put  the  blame 
entirely  on  Philip  for  the  troubles  between  him 
and  Don  John,  or  would  interpret  every  act  of 
Philip  to  his  detriment.  The  whole  story  might 
be  equally  interpreted  as  the  effort  of  a  most 
conscientious  and  narrow-minded  man  endea- 
vouring to  follow  out  what  he  thought  to  be  his 
father's  wishes  and  at  the  same  time  to  keep  a 
wild  young  brother  from  kicking  over  the  traces. 
Compare  Butler's,  The  Way  of  All  Flesh. 

But  the  real  interest  to  us  of  Don  John  is  in 
his  relations  with  Cervantes. 

Cervantes  on  his  galley  puts  his  sword  into  its  sheath 
(Don  John  of  Austria  rides  homewards  with  a  wreath), 
And  he  sees  across  a  weary  land  a  winding  road  in  Spain 
Up  which  a  lean  and  foolish  knight  rides  slowly  up  in  vain. 

And  it  will  be  a  sad  world  indeed  when  Don 
Quixote  at  last  reaches  the  top  of  that  winding 
road  and  men  cease  to  love  him. 

At  Lepanto  Miguel  de  Cervantes  Saavedra 
(please  pronounce  the  "  a's "  separately)  was 
about  twenty-five  years  of  age,  and  was  lying 

135 


POST    MORTEM 

below  deck  sick  of  a  fever.  When  he  heard  the 
roar  of  the  guns  of  Don  John  he  sprang  from  his 
bed  and  rushed  on  deck  in  spite  of  the  orders 
of  his  captain ;  he  was  put  in  charge  of  a  boat's 
crew  of  twelve  men  and  went  through  the  thick 
of  the  fighting.  Every  man  in  Don  John's  fleet 
was  fired  with  his  religious  enthusiasm,  and 
Cervantes'  courage  was  only  an  index  of  the  wild 
fervour  that  distinguished  the  Christians  on  that 
most  bloody  day.  He  was  wounded  in  the  left 
hand,  "  for  the  greater  glory  of  the  right,"  as 
he  himself  quaintly  says,  and  never  again  could 
he  move  the  fingers  of  the  injured  hand ;  no 
doubt  the  tendon  sheaths  had  become  septic,  and 
he  was  lucky  to  have  kept  the  hand  at  all.  It 
has  been  sapiently  remarked  that  the  world  would 
have  had  a  great  loss  if  it  had  been  the  right 
hand ;  but  healthy  people  who  lose  the  right 
hand  can  easily  learn  to  write  with  the  left. 
Cervantes  remained  in  the  fleet  for  some  years 
until,  on  his  way  home,  he  was  captured  by 
Algerian  pirates ;  put  to  the  service  of  a  Chris- 
tian renegade — a  man  who  had  turned  Mussul- 
man to  save  his  life  or  from  still  less  worthy 
motive — Cervantes  made  several  attempts  to 
escape,  but  these  were  unsuccessful,  and  he  re- 
mained in  captivity  for  some  years  until  his 
family  had  scraped  up  enough  to  ransom  him. 

136 


CERVANTES 

In  Don  Quixote  there  is  a  good  deal  about  the 
renegadoes,  and  much  of  the  well-known  story 
of  the  "  escaped  Moor "  is  probably  autobio- 
graphical ;  from  these  hints  we  gather  that  the 
renegadoes  were  not  quite  so  bad  as  has  been 
generally  thought,  or  else  that  Cervantes  was 
far  too  big-minded  a  man  to  believe  unnecessary 
evil  about  anybody. 

Back  in  Spain,  he  went  into  the  army  for  two 
years,  until,  in  1582,  he  gave  up  soldiering  and 
took  to  literature.  He  found  the  pen  "  a  good 
stick  but  a  bad  crutch,"  and  in  1585  returned  to 
the  public  service  as  deputy-purveyor  of  the 
fleet.  In  1594  he  became  collectors  of  revenues 
in  Granada,  and  in  1597  he  became  short  in  his 
accounts  and  fell  into  jail.  There  he  seems  to 
have  begun  Don  Quixote ;  he  somehow  obtained 
security  for  the  repayment  of  the  missing  money, 
was  released  penniless  into  a  suspicious  world, 
and  published  the  first  part  of  Don  Quixote  in 
1605.  It  was  enormously  well  received,  and  from 
that  day  to  this  has  remained  one  of  the  most 
successful  of  all  books.  Ten  years  later  he  found 
that  dishonest  publishers  were  issuing  spurious 
second  parts,  so  he  sat  himself  down  to  write  a 
genuine  sequel.  This  differs  from  most  sequels 
in  that  it  is  better  than  the  original ;  it  is  wiser, 
mellower,  less  ironical ;  Don  Quixote  and  Sancho 

137 


POST    MORTEM 

Panza  are  still  more  lovable  than  they  were 
before,  and  one  imagines  that  Cervantes  must 
have  spent  the  whole  ten  years  in  collecting — 
or  inventing — the  wonderful  proverbs  so  wisely 
uttered  by  the  squire. 

Though  Cervantes  wrote  many  plays  he  is 
now  remembered  mainly  by  his  one  very  great 
romance,  which  is  read  lovingly  in  every  lan- 
guage of  every  part  of  the  world,  so  that  the 
epithet  "  Quixotic "  is  applied  everywhere  to 
whatsoever  is  both  gallant  and  foolish  ;  an  epithet 
which  reflects  the  mixture  of  affection  and  pity 
in  which  the  old  Don  is  universally  held,  and  is 
more  often  considered  to  be  a  compliment  than 
the  reverse.  Curiously  enough,  women  seldom 
seem  to  like  Don  Quixote ;  only  the  other  day 
a  brilliant  young  woman  graduate  told  me  that 
she  thought  he  was  a  "  silly  old  fool !  "  That 
was  all  she  could  see  in  him  ;  but  he  is  universally 
now  thought  to  represent  the  pathos  of  the  man 
who  is  born  out  of  his  time.  As  has  been  so  well 
said,  "  This  book  is  not  meant  for  laughter — it 
is  meant  for  tears."  I  can  do  no  more  than 
advise  everybody  to  get  a  thin-paper  copy  and 
let  it  live  in  the  pocket  for  some  months,  reading 
it  at  odd  moments ;  it  is  the  wisest  and  wittiest 
book  ever  published.  "  Blessed  be  the  man 
who  invented  sleep,"  is  a  typical  piece  of 

138 


DON    QUIXOTE 

Panzan  philosophy  with  which  most  wise  men 
will  agree. 

But  when  we  have  done  sentimentalizing  over 
the  hidden  meaning  that  undoubtedly  underlies 
Don  Quixote,  we  must  not  forget  that  it  is 
extraordinarily  funny  even  to  a  modern  mind. 
The  law  that  the  humour  of  one  generation  is 
merely  grotesque  to  the  next  does  not  seem  to 
apply  to  Don  Quixote  ;  and  I  dare  swear  that  the 
picture  of  the  mad  old  Don,  brought  home  from 
the  inn  of  Maritornes,  looking  so  stately  in  a  cage 
upon  a  bullock-wagon,  guarded  by  troopers  of 
the  Holy  Brotherhood,  and  escorted  by  the  priest 
and  the  barber,  with  the  distracted  Sancho  Panza 
buzzing  about  wondering  what  has  become  of 
his  promised  Governorship,  is  absolutely  the 
funniest  thing  in  all  literature  ;  all  the  funnier 
because  the  springs  of  our  laughter  flow  from 
the  fount  of  our  tears. 

Now  I  cannot  help  thinking  that  when  Cer- 
vantes began  to  write  Don  Quixote  in  prison, 
feeling  bitter  and  sore  against  a  world  which  had 
imprisoned  him,  and  stiffened  his  hand  for  him, 
and  condemned  him  to  poverty  and  imprisonment, 
he  must  have  had  in  his  mind  the  story  of  the 
young  bastard  of  Imperial  Majesty  who  had  risen 
to  such  heights  of  glory  over  Lepanto.  It  is  not 
contended  that  Don  Quixote  was  consciously 

139 


POST    MORTEM 

intended  to  be  a  characterizature  of  Don  Quixada 
or  Don  John,  though  his  real  name  was  Alonzo 
Quixana  or  Quixada,  Don  Quixote  being  a 
nom  de  guerre  born  of  his  frenzy ;  but  I  find  it 
hard  to  believe  that  Cervantes  had  not  heard  of 
the  foolish  loyalty  of  Quixada  in  the  matter  of 
Jeronimo,  or  of  the  romantic  dreams  of  Don  John. 
It  would  seem  that  in  these  two  incidents  we 
find  the  true  seeds  of  Don  Quixote.  It  is  not 
true  that  "  Cervantes  laughed  Spain's  chivalry 
away."  Chivalry,  meaning  the  social  order  of 
the  true  crusades,  had  long  been  dead  even  in 
Spain,  the  most  conservative  of  nations.  What 
really  laughed  Spain's  chivalry  away  was  the  gay 
and  joyous  laugh  of  Don  John  himself,  who 
would  have  plunged  her  into  a  great  war  for  a 
dream.  The  man  who  seriously  thought  of 
dashing  across  the  North  Sea  to  marry  Mary 
Queen  of  Scots  would  have  been  quite  capable 
of  tilting  at  windmills.  In  his  inmost  heart 
Cervantes  must  have  seen  his  folly. 

The  death  of  Don  Quixote  is  probably  the 
most  generally  famous  in  literature,  vying  with 
that  of  Colonel  Newcome,  though  more  impressive 
because  it  is  less  sentimental.  Cervantes  had 
begun  by  rather  jeering  at  his  old  Don,  and 
subjecting  him  to  uncalled-for  cudgellings  and 
humiliations ;  he  then  fell  in  love  with  the  brave 

140 


DON    QUIXOTE 

old  lunatic,  as  everybody  else  has  fallen  in  love 
with,  him  ever  since,  and  by  the  time  that  he 
came  to  die  had  drawn  him  as  a  really  noble  and 
beautiful  character,  who  shows  all  the  pathos  of 
the  idealist  who  is  born  out  of  his  time.  The 
death  of  Don  Quixote  is,  except  the  death  of 
one  other  Idealist,  the  most  affecting  death  in 
all  literature ;  the  pathos  is  secured  by  means 
similarly  restrained.  The  Bachelor  Samson  Car- 
rasco,  in  his  determination  to  cure  Don  Quixote 
of  his  knight-errant  folly,  had  dressed  himself  up 
as  "The  Knight  of  the  White  Moon,"  and 
vowed  that  there  was  another  lady  more  fair 
than  Dulcinea  del  Toboso.  At  that  blasphemy 
Don  Quixote  naturally  flew  to  arms  and  chal- 
lenged the  insolent  knight.  By  that  time  Rosin- 
ante  was  but  old  bones,  so  the  Bachelor,  being 
well-mounted  on  a  young  charger,  overthrew 
the  old  horse  and  his  brave  old  rider,  and  Don 
Quixote  came  to  grass  with  a  terrible  fall.  Then 
the  Bachelor  made  Don  Quixote  vow  that  he 
would  cease  from  his  knight-errantry  for  a  whole 
year,  by  which  time  it  was  hoped  that  he  would 
be  cured.  They  lifted  his  visor  and  found  the 
old  man  "  pale  and  sweating  "  ;  evidently  Cer- 
vantes had  seen  some  old  man  suffering  from 
shock,  and  described  what  he  saw  in  three  words. 
From  this  humiliation  Don  Quixote  never  really 

141 


POST    MORTEM 

recovered.  He  reached  home  and  formed  the 
mad  idea  of  turning  shepherd  with  Sancho  and 
the  Bachelor,  and  living  out  his  penance  in  the 
fields.  But  Death  saw  otherwise,  and  the  old 
man  answered  his  call  before  he  could  do  as  he 
wished.  He  was  seized  with  a  violent  fever  that 
confined  him  to  his  room  for  six  days ;  finally 
he  slept  calmly  for  some  hours,  and  again  awak- 
ened, only  to  fall  into  one  attack  of  syncope  after 
another  until  he  died ;  the  sanguine  assurance 
of  Sancho  Panza  that  Dulcinea  had  been  success- 
fully disenchanted  could  not  save  him.  Like 
most  idealists  he  died  a  sad  and  disappointed  man, 
certain  of  one  thing  only — that  he  was  out  of 
touch  with  the  majority  of  mankind. 

Cervantes  was  far  too  great  an  artist  to  kill 
his  old  hero  by  some  such  folly  as  "  brain  fever  " 
— which  nonsense  I  guess  to  have  been  typhoid. 
I  believe  that  in  describing  the  death  of  Don 
Quixote  he  was  thinking  of  some  old  man  whom 
he  had  seen  crawl  home  to  die  after  a  severe 
physical  shock,  disappointed  and  disillusioned  in 
a  world  of  practical  youth  in  which  there  is  no 
room  for  romantic  old  age — probably  some  kind 
old  man  whom  he  himself  had  loved.  These  old 
men  usually  die  of  hypostatic  pneumonia,  which 
has  been  called  the  "  natural  end  of  man,"  and 
is  probably  the  real  broken  heart  of  popular  medi- 

142 


DON    QUIXOTE 

cine.  The  old  man,  after  a  severe  shock,  is 
affected  by  a  weakened  circulation  ;  the  lungs  are 
attacked  by  a  slow  inflammation,  and  he  dies, 
usually  in  a  few  days,  in  much  the  same  way  as 
died  Don  Quixote.  Cervantes  did  not  know 
that  these  old  men  die  from  inflammation  of  the 
lungs  ;  no  doubt  he  observed  the  way  they  die, 
and  immortalized  his  memories  in  the  death  of 
Don  Quixote.  I  have  written  this  to  point  out 
Cervantes'  great  powers  of  observation.  He 
would  probably  have  made  a  good  doctor  in  our 
day. 

This  theory  of  Don  Quixote,  that  at  its  roots  lie 
memories  of  Don  John  and  Don  Quixada,  is  in 
no  way  inconsistent  with  Cervantes'  own  state- 
ment that  he  wrote  the  book  to  ridicule  the 
romances  of  Chivalry  which  were  so  vitiating  the 
literary  taste  of  seventeenth-century  Spain ;  at  the 
back  of  his  mind  probably  lay  his  own  memories 
of  foolish  and  gallant  things,  quite  worthy  of 
affectionate  ridicule  such  as  he  has  lavished  on 
his  knight-errant. 


Philip  II  and  the   Arterio-Sclerosis 
of  Statesmen 

WHEN  the  Empress  Isabel  was  pregnant 
with  the  child  which  was  to  be  Philip  II, 
she  bethought  her  of  the  glory  that  was  hers  in 
bearing  offspring  to  a  man  so  famous  as  the 
Roman  Emperor,  and  she  made  up  her  mind  that 
she  would  comport  herself  as  became  a  Roman 
Empress.  When,  therefore,  her  relations  and 
midwives  during  the  confinement  implored  her 
to  cry  out  or  she  would  die,  the  proud  Empress 
answered,  "  Die  I  may  ;  but  call  out  I  will  not !  " 
and  thus  Philip  arrived  into  the  world  sombre  son 
of  a  stoical  mother  and  heroic  father.  Doubtless 
she  thought  that  she  would  show  a  courage  equal 
to  his  father's,  hoping  that  the  son  would  then 
prove  not  unworthy.  Though  she  was  very 
beautiful,  as  Titian's  famous  portrait  shows,  she 
seems  to  have  been  a  gloomy  and  austere  woman, 
and  Charles,  being  absent  so  long  from  her  side 
at  his  wars,  had  to  leave  Philip's  education  mainly 
to  her.  His  part  consisted  of  many  affectionate 
letters  full  of  good  and  proud  advice.  Yet  Philip 
grew  up  to  be  a  merry  little  golden-haired  boy 
enough,  who  rode  about  the  streets  of  Toledo  in  a 

144 


PHILIP    II 

go-cart  amidst  the  crowds  that  we  are  told  pressed 
to  see  the  Emperor's  son.  The  calamity  of  his 
life  was  that  Charles  had  bequeathed  to  him  the 
kingdom  of  the  Netherlands.  Charles  himself 
was  essentially  a  Fleming,  who  got  on  exceedingly 
well  with  his  brother  Flemings,  Reformation  or 
no  Reformation ;  they  were  quite  prepared  to 
admit  that  the  great  man  might  have  some  good 
reason  for  his  religious  persecution,  peculiar 
though  it  no  doubt  seemed.  But  Philip  was  a 
foreigner  ;  and  a  foreigner  of  the  race  of  Torque- 
mada  who,  so  they  heard,  had  so  strengthened  the 
Inquisition  less  than  a  century  before  that  now 
it  was  really  not  safe  to  think  aloud  in  matters  of 
religion.  So  the  Dutch  rose  in  revolt  under 
William  of  Orange,  and  the  Dutch  Republic  came 
into  being.  Philip  was  only  able  to  save  the 
southern  Netherlands  from  the  wreck,  which 
ultimately  formed  the  kingdom  of  Belgium. 
Philip  always  thought  that  if  he  could  only  get 
England  on  his  side  the  pacification  of  the  Nether- 
lands would  be  easy ;  so,  at  the  earnest  request  of 
Charles,  he  married  Mary  Tudor,  a  woman 
twelve  years  older  than  himself,  a  marriage  which 
turned  out  unhappily  from  every  point  of  view, 
and  has  wrongly  coloured  our  general  opinion  of 
Philip's  character.  The  unfortunate  attempt  to 
conquer  England  by  the  Armada,  a  fleet  badly 

145  K 


POST    MORTEM 

equipped  and  absurdly  led,  has  also  led  us  to 
despise  both  him  and  his  Spaniards,  whence  came 
the  general  English  schoolboy  idea  that  the 
Spanish  were  a  nation  of  braggarts  ruled  by  a 
murderous  fool,  whose  only  thirst  was  for  Protest- 
ant gore.  But  this  idea  was  very  far  from  being 
true.  Philip  was  no  fool ;  he  was  an  exceedingly 
learned,  conscientious,  hard-working,  careful,  and 
painstaking  bureaucrat,  who  might  have  done 
very  well  indeed  had  he  been  left  the  kingdom  of 
Spain  alone ;  but  had  no  power  of  attracting 
foreigners  to  his  point  of  view.  He  always  did 
his  best  according  to  his  lights ;  and  if  his  policy 
sometimes  appears  tortuous  to  us,  that  is  simply 
because  we  forget  that  it  was  then  thought 
perfectly  right  for  kings  to  do  tortuous  things 
for  the  sake  of  their  people,  just  as  to-day  party 
leaders  sometimes  do  extraordinarily  wicked  things 
for  the  sake  of  what  they  consider  the  principles 
of  their  party.  Unfortunately  for  Philip  he  often 
failed  in  his  efforts ;  and  the  man  who  fails  is 
always  in  the  wrong. 

He  was  constantly  at  war,  sometimes  unsuccess- 
fully, often  victoriously.  Unlike  Charles  he  did 
not  lead  his  armies  in  person,  but  sat  at  home  and 
prayed,  read  the  crystal,  and  organized.  After 
the  great  battle  of  St.  Quentin,  in  which  he 
defeated  the  French,  he  vowed  to  erect  a  mighty 

146 


PHILIP    II 

church  to  the  glory  of  St.  Lawrence  which  should 
excel  every  other  building  in  the  world ;  and  for 
thirty  years  the  whole  available  wealth  of  Spain 
and  the  Indies  was  poured  out  on  the  erection 
of  the  Escorial,  which  the  Spaniards  look  upon  as 
the  eighth  wonder  of  the  world,  and  who  is  to  say 
that  they  are  wrong  ?  Situated  about  twenty 
miles  from  Madrid,  in  a  bleak  and  desolate 
mountain  range,  it  reflects  extraordinarily  well 
the  character  of  the  man  who  made  it.  Under 
one  almost  incredible  roof  it  combines  a  palace,  a 
university,  a  monastery,  a  church,  and  a  mauso- 
leum. The  weight  of  its  keys  alone  is  measured  in 
scores  of  pounds ;  the  number  of  its  windows  and 
its  doors  is  counted  in  hundreds ;  it  contains  the 
greatest  works  of  many  very  great  artists,  and  the 
tombs  of  Charles  V  and  his  descendants.  It 
stands  in  lonely  grandeur  swept  by  constant  bitter 
winds,  a  fit  monument  for  a  lonely  and  morose 
king.  Its  architecture  is  Doric,  and  stern  as  its 
mvn  granite. 

The  character  of  Philip  II  has  been  described 
repeatedly,  in  England  mainly  by  his  enemies, 
who  have  laid  too  much  stress  on  his  cruelty  and 
bigotry.  Though  he  was  fiercely  religious,  yet 
he  loved  art  and  wrote  poetry  ;  though  he  would 
burn  a  heretic  as  blithely  as  any  man,  yet  he  was  a 
kind  husband  to  his  four  wives,  whom  he  married 

H7 


POST    MORTEM 

one  after  the  other  for  political  reasons ;  though 
he  was  gloomy  and  austere,  yet  he  loved  music, 
and  was  moved  almost  to  tears  by  the  sound  of  the 
nightingale  in  the  summer  evenings  of  Spain.  His 
people  loved  him  and  affectionately  called  him 
"  Philip  the  prudent  "  ;  they  forgave  him  his 
mistakes,  for  they  knew  that  he  worked  always  for 
the  ancient  religion  which  they  loved,  and  for 
the  glory  of  Spain. 

Unlike  Charles  his  father,  he  was  austere  in  his 
mode  of  life,  and  always  had  a  doctor  at  his  side 
at  meals  lest  he  should  forget  his  gout.  He  was 
a  martyr  to  that  most  distressing  complaint,  no 
doubt  inherited  from  his  father.  He  lived 
abstemiously,  but  took  too  little  exercise ;  it 
would  have  been  better  for  his  health — and 
probably  for  the  world — had  he  followed  his 
armies  on  horseback  like  Charles,  even  if  he  had 
recognized  that  he  was  no  great  general. 

His  death,  at  the  age  of  seventy-two,  was  proud 
and  sombre,  as  befitted  the  son  of  the  Empress 
Isabel,  who  had  scorned  to  cry  when  he  was  born. 
We  can  understand  a  good  deal  about  Philip 
if  we  consider  him  as  spiritually  the  son  of  that 
proud  sombre  woman  rather  than  of  his  glorious 
and  energetic  father.  In  June,  1598,  he  was 
attacked  by  an  unusually  severe  attack  of  gout 
which  so  crippled  him  that  he  could  hardly  move. 

148 


PHILIP    II 

He  was  carried  from  Madrid  to  the  Escorial  in  a 
litter,  and  was  put  to  bed  in  a  little  room  opening 
off  the  church  so  that  he  could  hear  the  friars  at 
their  orisons.  Soon  he  began  to  suffer  from 
"  malignant  tumours  "  all  over  his  legs,  which 
ulcerated,  and  became  intensely  painful,  so  that 
he  could  not  bear  even  a  wet  cloth  to  be  laid  upon 
them  or  to  have  the  ulcers  dressed.  So  he  lay  for 
fifty-three  days  suffering  frightful  tortures,  but 
never  uttering  a  word  of  complaint,  even  as  his 
mother  had  borne  him  in  silence  for  the  sake  of 
the  great  man  who  had  begotten  him.  As  the 
ulcers  could  not  be  dressed,  they  naturally  became 
covered  with  vermin  and  smelled  horribly. 
Stoical  in  his  agony,  he  called  his  son  before  him, 
apologizing  for  doing  so,  but  it  was  necessary. 
"  I  want,"  he  said,  "  to  show  you  how  even  the 
greatest  monarchies  must  end.  The  crown  is 
slipping  from  my  head,  and  will  soon  rest  upon 
yours.  In  a  few  days  I  shall  be  nothing  but  a 
corpse  swathed  in  its  winding-sheet,  girdled  with 
a  rope."  He  showed  no  sign  of  emotionalism, 
but  retained  his  self-control  to  the  last ;  after  he 
had  said  farewell  to  his  son  he  considered  that  he 
had  left  the  world,  and  devoted  the  last  few  days 
of  his  life  to  the  offices  of  the  church.  The 
monks  in  the  church  wanted  to  cease  the  con- 
tinual dirges  and  services,  but  he  insisted  that 

149 


POST    MORTEM 

they  should  go  on,  saying  :  "  The  nearer  I  get 
to  the  fountain,  the  more  thirsty  I  become  !  " 

These  seem  to  have  been  his  last  words ;  he 
appears  to  have  retained  consciousness  as  long  as 
may  be. 

Let  us  reason  together  and  try  if  we  can  make 
head  or  tail  of  this  extraordinary  illness.  The 
first  certain  fact  about  Philip  II  is  that  he  long 
suffered  from  gout,  apparently  the  real  old- 
fashioned  gout  in  the  feet.  In  the  well-known 
picture  of  him  receiving  a  deputation  of  Nether- 
landers,  as  he  sits  in  his  tall  hat  beneath  a  crucifix, 
it  is  perfectly  evident  that  he  is  suffering  tortures 
from  gout  and  wearing  a  large  loosely  fitting 
slipper.  These  unfortunate  gentlemen  seem  to 
have  selected  a  most  unpropitious  moment  to  ask 
favours,  for  there  is  no  ailment  that  so  warps  the 
temper  as  gout.  When  a  man  suffers  from  gout 
over  a  period  of  years  it  is  only  a  matter  of  time 
till  his  arteries  and  kidneys  go  wrong  and  he  gets 
arterio-sclerosis.  We  may  take  it,  therefore,  as 
certain  that  at  the  age  of  seventy-two  Philip  had 
sclerosed  arteries  and  probably  chronic  Bright's 
disease  like  his  father  before  him.  Gout,  Bright's 
disease,  and  high  blood-pressure,  are  all  strongly 
hereditary,  as  every  insurance  doctor  knows ;  that 
is  to  say,  the  son  of  a  father  who  has  died  of  one 
of  these  three  is  more  likely  than  not  to  die 

150 


PHILIP    II 

ultimately  of  some  cognate  disease  of  arteries  or 
kidneys  or  heart,  all  grouped  together  under  the 
name  of  cardio-vascular-renal  disease. 

But  what  about  the  "  malignant  tumours "  ? 
"  Malignant  tumour  "  to-day  means  cancer  of 
one  sort  or  another,  and  assuredly  it  was  not 
cancer  that  killed  Philip.  Probably  the  word 
"  tumour  "  simply  meant  "  swelling."  Now, 
what  could  these  painful  swellings  have  been 
which  ulcerated  and  smelt  so  horribly  ?  Why 
not  gangrene  ?  Ordinary  senile  gangrene,  such 
as  occurs  in  arterio-sclerosis,  neither  causes 
swellings,  nor  is  it  painful,  nor  does  it  smell  nor 
become  verminous ;  but  diabetic  gangrene  does  all 
these  things.  Diabetes  in  elderly  people  may  go 
on  for  many  years  undiscovered  unless  the  urine  be 
chemically  examined,  and  may  only  cause  symp- 
toms when  the  arterio-sclerosis  which  generally 
complicates  it  gives  results,  such  as  sudden  death 
from  heart-failure,  or  diabetic  gangrene.  Thus 
a  very  famous  Australian  statesman,  who  had  been 
known  to  have  sugar  in  his  urine  for  many  years, 
was  one  morning  found  dead  in  his  bath,  evidently 
due  to  the  high  blood-pressure  consequent  on 
diabetic  arterio-sclerosis. 

Diabetic  gangrene  often  begins  in  some  small 
area  of  injured  skin,  such  as  might  readily  occur 
in  a  foot  tortured  with  gout ;  it  ulcerates,  is 


POST    MORTEM 

exceedingly  painful,  and  possessed  of  a  stench 
quite  peculiar  to  its  horrid  self.  It  does  not 
confine  itself  to  one  foot,  or  to  one  area  of  a  leg, 
but  suddenly  appears  in  an  apparently  healthy 
portion,  having  surreptitiously  worked  its  way 
along  beneath  the  skin ;  its  first  sign  is  often  a 
painful  swelling  which  ulcerates.  The  patient 
dies  either  from  toxaemia  due  to  the  gangrene, 
or  from  diabetic  coma  ;  and  fifty-three  days  is 
not  an  unlikely  period  for  the  torture  to  continue. 
On  the  whole  it  would  seem  that  diabetic  gangrene 
appearing  in  a  man  who  has  arterio-sclerosis  is  a 
probable  explanation  of  Philip's  death.  The 
really  interesting  part  of  this  historical  diagnosis 
is  the  way  in  which  it  explains  his  treatment  of 
the  Netherlands.  What  justice  could  they  have 
received  from  a  man  tortured  and  rendered 
petulant  with  gout  and  gloomy  with  dia- 
betes ? 

Charles  V  had  taken  no  care  of  himself,  but  had 
gone  roaring  and  fighting  and  guzzling  and  drink- 
ing all  over  Europe  ;  Philip  had  led  a  very  quiet, 
studious,  and  abstemious  life,  and  therefore  he 
lived  nearly  twenty  years  longer  than  his  father. 
Possibly  when  he  came  to  suffer  the  torments  of 
his  death  he  may  have  thought  the  years  not 
worth  his  self-denial :  possibly  he  may  have 
regretted  that  he  did  not  have  a  good  time  when 

152 


PHILIP    II 

he  was  young,  but  this  is  not  likely,  for  he  was  a 
very  conscientious  man. 

When  Philip  lay  dying  he  held  in  his  hand  the 
common  little  crucifix  that  his  mother  and  father 
had  adored  when  they  too  had  died ;  his  friends 
buried  it  upon  his  breast  when  they  came  to 
inter  him.  in  the  Escorial,  where  it  still  lies  with 
him  in  a  coffin  made  of  the  timbers  of  the  Cinco 
Cbagas,  not  the  least  glorious  of  his  fighting 
galleys. 

Arterio-sclerosis,  high  blood-pressure,  hyper- 
piesis,  and  chronic  Bright's  disease — all  more  or 
less  names  for  the  same  thing,  or  at  any  rate  for 
cognate  disorders — form  one  of  the  great  tragedies 
of  the  world.  They  attack  the  very  men  whom  we 
can  least  spare ;  they  are  essentially  the  diseases  of 
statesmen.  Although  these  diseases  have  been 
attributed  to  many  causes — that  is  to  say,  we  do 
not  really  know  their  true  cause — it  is  certain 
that  worry  has  a  great  deal  to  do  with  them.  If 
a  man  be  content  to  live  the  life  of  a  cabbage,  eat 
little,  and  drink  no  alcohol,  it  is  probable  that  he 
will  not  suffer  from  high  blood-pressure ;  but  if 
he  is  determined  to  work  hard,  live  well,  and  yet 
struggle  furiously,  then  his  arteries  and  kidneys 
inevitably  go  wrong  and  he  is  not  likely  to  stand 
the  strain  for  many  years.  Unless  a  politician  has 
an  iron  nerve  and  preternaturally  calm  nature,  or 


POST    MORTEM 

unless  he  is  fortunate  enough  to  be  carried  off 
by  pneumonia,  then  he  is  almost  certain  to  die 
of  high  blood-pressure  if  he  persists  in  his  politics. 
I  could  name  a  dozen  able  politicians  who  have 
fallen  victims  to  their  political  anxieties.  The 
latest,  so  far  as  I  know,  was  Mr.  John  Storey, 
Premier  of  New  South  Wales,  who  died  of  high 
blood-pressure  in  1921  ;  before  him  I  remember 
several  able  men  whom  the  furious  politics  of 
that  State  claimed  as  victims.  In  England  Lord 
Beaconsfield  seems  to  have  died  of  high  blood- 
pressure,  and  so  did  Mr.  Joseph  Chamberlain. 
Mr.  Gladstone  was  less  fortunate,  in  that  he 
died  of  cancer.  He  must  have  possessed  a  calm 
mind  to  go  through  his  furious  strugglings  with- 
out his  kidneys  or  blood-vessels  giving  way ;  that, 
and  his  singularly  temperate  and  happy  home- 
life,  preserved  him  from  the  usual  fate  of  states- 
men. 

Charles  V  differed  from  Mr.  Gladstone 
because  he  habitually  ate  far  too  much,  and  could 
never  properly  relax  his  mental  tension.  His 
arterio-sclerosis  had  many  results  on  history.  It 
was  probably  responsible  for  his  extreme  fits  of 
depression,  in  one  of  which  it  pleased  Fate  that 
he  should  meet  Barbara  Blomberg.  If  he  had 
not  been  extraordinarily  depressed  and  unhappy, 
owing  to  his  arterio-sclerosis,  he  would  probably 

'54 


PHILIP    II 

not  have  troubled  about  her,  and  there  would 
have  been  no  Don  John  of  Austria.  If  he  had 
not  had  arterio-sclerosis  he  would  probably  not 
have  abdicated  in  1556,  when  he  should  have  had 
many  years  of  wise  and  useful  activities  before 
him.  If  his  judgment  had  not  been  warped  by 
his  illness  he  would  probably  never  have  appointed 
Philip  II  to  be  his  successor  as  King  of  the  Nether- 
lands ;  he  would  have  seen  that  the  Dutch  were 
not  the  sort  of  people  to  be  ruled  by  an  alien. 
And  if  there  had  been  no  Don  John  it  is  possible 
that  there  would  have  been  no  Don  Quixote. 
Once  again,  if  Philip  had  not  been  eternally  pre 
occupied  with  his  senseless  struggle  against  th 
Dutch,  it  is  probable  that  he  would  have  under- 
taken his  real  duty — to  protect  Europe  from  the 
Turk.  When  one  considers  how  the  lives  of 
Charles  and  his  sons  might  have  been  altered 
had  his  arteries  been  carrying  a  lower  blood- 
tension,  it  rather  tends  to  alter  the  philosophy 
of  history  to  a  medical  man. 

Again,  when  we  consider  that  the  destinies  of 
nations  are  commonly  held  in  the  hands  of  elderly 
gentlemen  whose  blood-pressures  tend  to  be  too 
high  owing  to  their  fierce  political  activities,  it 
is  not  too  much  to  say  that  arterio-sclerosis  is 
one  of  the  greatest  tragedies  that  afHict  the 
human  race.  Every  politician  should  have  his 

155 


POST    MORTEM 

blood-pressure  tested  and  his  urine  examined 
abcrut  once  a  quarter,  and  if  it  should  show  signs 
of  rising  he  should  undoubtedly  take  a  long  rest 
until  it  falls  again  ;  it  is  not  fair  that  the  lives  of 
millions  should  depend  upon  the  judgment  of  a 
man  whose  mind  is  warped  by  arterio-sclerosis. 


Mr.  and  Mrs.   Pepys 

SAMUEL  PEPYS,  Father  of  the  Royal  Navy, 
and  the  one  man — if  indeed  there  were 
any  one  man — who  made  possible  the  careers  of 
Blake  and  Nelson,  died  in  1703  in  the  odour  of 
the  greatest  respectability.  Official  London  fol- 
lowed him  to  his  honoured  grave,  and  he  left 
behind  him  the  memory  of  a  great  and  good 
servant  of  the  King  in  "  perriwig "  (alas,  to 
become  too  famous),  stockings  and  silver  buckles. 
But  unhappily  for  his  reputation,  though  greatly 
to  the  delight  of  a  wicked  world,  he  had,  during 
ten  momentous  years,  kept  a  diary.  It  was 
written  in  a  kind  of  shorthand  which  he  seems  to 
have  flattered  himself  would  not  be  interpreted ; 
but  by  some  extraordinary  mischance  he  had  left 
a  key  amongst  his  papers.  Early  in  the  nineteenth 
century  part  of  the  Diary  was  translated,  and  a 
part  published.  A  staggered  world  asked  for 
more,  and  during  the  next  three  generations 
further  portions  were  made  public,  until  by  this 
time  nearly  the  whole  has  been  published,  and 
it  is  unlikely  that  the  small  remaining  portions 
will  ever  see  the  light. 

Pepys  seems  to  have  set  down  every  thought 

157 


POST    MORTEM 

that  came  into  his  head  as  he  wrote ;  things 
which  the  ordinary  man  hardly  admits  to  him- 
self— even  supposing  that  he  ever  thinks  or  does 
them — this  stately  Secretary  of  the  Navy  calmly 
wrote  in  black  and  white  with  a  garrulous 
effrontery  that  absolutely  disarms  criticism.  In 
its  extraordinary  self-revelation  the  Diary  is 
unique ;  it  is  literally  true  that  there  is  nothing 
else  like  it  in  any  other  language,  and  it  is  almost 
impossible  that  anything  like  it  will  ever  be  written 
again ;  the  man,  the  moment,  and  the  occasion 
can  never  recur.  I  take  it  that  every  man  who 
presumes  to  call  himself  educated  has  at  least  a 
nodding  acquaintance  with  this  immortal  work ; 
but  a  glance  at  some  of  its  medical  features  may 
be  interesting.  The  difficulties  at  this  end  of  the 
world  are  considerable,  because  the  Editor  has 
veiled  some  of  the  more  interesting  medical 
passages  in  the  decent  obscurity  of  asterisks,  and 
one  has  to  guess  at  some  anatomical  terms  which, 
if  too  Saxon  to  be  printable  in  modern  English, 
might  very  well  have  been  given  in  technical 
Latin.  Let  us  begin  with  a  brief  study  of  the 
delightful  woman  who  had  the  good  fortune — 
or  otherwise — to  be  Pepys's  wife.  Daughter  of 
a  French  immigrant  and  an  Irish  girl,  Elizabeth 
Pepys  was  married  at  fourteen,  and  her  life  ended, 
after  fifteen  somewhat  hectic  years,  in  1669,  when 

158 


MR.    AND    MRS.    PEPYS 

she  was  only  twenty- nine  years  of  age.  Pepys 
repeatedly  tells  us  that  she  was  pretty — and  no 
one  was  ever  a  better  judge  than  he — and  "  very 
good  company  when  she  is  well."  Her  portrait 
shows  her  with  a  bright,  clever  little  face,  her 
upper  lip  perhaps  a  trifle  longer  than  the  ideal, 
bosom  well  developed,  and  a  coquettish  curl 
allowed  to  hang  over  her  forehead  after  the 
fashion  of  the  Court  of  Charles  II.  She  spoke 
and  read  French  and  English ;  she  took  the 
keenest  interest  in  life,  and  set  to  work  to  learn 
from  her  husband  arithmetic,  "  musique,"  the 
flageolet,  use  of  the  globes,  and  various  accom- 
plishments which  modern  girls  learn  at  school. 
Mrs.  Pepys  imbibing  all  this  erudition  from  her 
husband,  while  her  pretty  little  dog  lies  snoring 
on  the  mat,  forms  a  truly  delightful  picture,  and 
no  doubt  our  imagination  of  it  is  no  more  delight- 
ful than  the  reality  was  three  hundred  years  ago. 
I  suppose  it  was  the  same  dog  as  he  whose  puppyish 
indiscretions  had  led  to  many  a  fierce  quarrel 
between  husband  and  wife ;  Pepys  always  care- 
fully recorded  these  indiscretions,  both  of  the 
dog  and,  alas,  of  himself.  It  is  clear  that  the 
sanitary  conveniences  in  Pepys's  house  could  not 
have  been  up  to  his  requirements. 

Husband  and  wife  went  everywhere  together, 
and  seem  really  to  have  loved  each  other ;    the 


POST    MORTEM 

impression  that  I  gather  from  Pepys's  exceedingly 
candid  description  of  her  is  that  she  was  a  loyal 
and  comradely  wife,  with  a  spirit  of  her  own,  and 
a  good  deal  to  put  up  with ;  for  though  Pepys 
was  continually — and  causelessly — jealous  of  her, 
yet  he  did  not  hold  that  he  was  in  any  way  bound 
to  be  faithful  to  her  on  his  own  side.  So  they 
pass  through  life,  Pepys  philandering  with  every 
attractive  woman  who  came  his  way,  and  Mrs. 
Pepys  dressing  herself  prettily,  learning  her  little 
accomplishments,  squabbling  with  her  maids, 
and  looking  after  her  house  and  his  meals,  till 
one  day  she  engaged  a  servant,  Deb  Willet  by 
name,  who  brought  a  touch  of  tragedy  into  the 
home.  In  November,  1668,  Deb  was  combing 
Pepys's  hair — no  doubt  in  preparation  for  the 
immortal  "  perriwig  " — when  Mrs.  Pepys  came 
in  and  caught  him  "  embracing  her,"  thus  occa- 
sioning "  the  greatest  sorrow  to  me  that  ever  I 
knew  in  this  world,"  as  he  puts  it. 

Mrs.  Pepys  was  "  struck  mute,"  and  was 
silently  furious.  Outraged  Juno  towered  over  the 
unhappy  Pepys,  and  so  to  bed  without  a  word, 
nor  slept  all  night ;  but  about  two  in  the  morning 
Juno  became  very  woman  ;  woke  him  up  and  told 
him  she  had  "  turned  Roman  Catholique,"  this 
being,  in  the  state  of  politics  at  that  time,  probably 
the  thing  which  she  thought  would  hurt  him 

1 60 


MR.    AND    MRS.    PEPYS 

more  than  anything  else  she  could  say.  For  the 
next  few  days  Pepys  is  sore  troubled,  and  his 
usual  genial  babble  becomes  almost  incoherent. 
The  wrong  dating  and  the  expressions  of 
"  phrenzy "  show  the  mental  agony  that  he 
passed  through,  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
the  joy  of  life  passed  out  of  him,  probably  never 
more  fully  to  return.  The  rest  of  the  Diary  is 
written  in  a  style  graver  than  at  first — some  of  it 
is  almost  passionate.  He  describes  with  much 
mental  agitation  how  he  woke  up  in  the  middle 
of  one  night,  and  found  his  wife  heating  a  pair  of 
tongs  red-hot  and  preparing  to  pinch  his  nose ; 
gone  for  ever  were  the  glad  days  when  he  could 
pull  her  nose,  and  the  "  poor  wretch  "  thought 
none  the  worse  of  the  lordly  fellow.  Twice  had 
he  done  so,  and,  as  he  says,  "  to  offend."  One 
would  like  to  have  Mrs.  Pepys 's  account  of  this 
nose-pulling,  and  what  she  really  thought  of  it. 
Some  people  have  found  the  struggle  of  Pepys 
to  cure  himself  of  his  infatuation  for  Deb 
humorous ;  to  any  ordinarily  sympathetic  soul 
who  reads  how  he  prayed  on  his  knees  in  his  own 
room  that  God  would  give  him  strength  never 
again  to  be  unfaithful,  and  how  he  appealed  again 
and  again  to  his  wife  to  forgive  him,  and  how  he, 
to  the  best  of  his  ability,  avoided  the  girl,  the 
whole  business  becomes  rather  too  painful  to 

161  L 


POST    MORTEM 

be  funny,  even  though  the  unhappy  man  has  the 
art  of  making  himself  ridiculous  in  nearly  every 
sentence.  Finally,  in  a  fury  of  jealousy,  she  forced 
him  to  write  a  most  insulting  letter  to  Miss 
Willet,  a  letter  that  no  woman  could  ever  possibly 
forgive,  and  Pepys's  life  appears  to  have  settled 
down  again.  His  sight  failing  him l — it  is  thought 
that  he  suffered  from  hypermetropia  combined 
with  early  presbyopia — he  abandoned  the  Diary 
just  at  the  time  when  one  would  have  dearly 
liked  to  hear  more ;  and  we  never  hear  the  end 
either  of  Deb  or  of  their  married  happiness. 
Reading  between  the  lines,  one  gathers  that 
probably  Deb  was  more  sinned  against  than 
sinning,  and  that  Mrs.  Pepys  had  more  real  reason 
to  be  angry  about  many  women  of  whom  she 
had  never  heard  than  about  the  young  woman 
whose  flirtation  was  the  actual  casus  belli.  It  is 
an  unjust  world.  The  two  went  abroad  for  a 
six-months'  tour  in  France  and  Holland,  and 
immediately  after  they  returned  Mrs.  Pepys  fell 
ill  of  a  fever ;  for  a  time  she  appears  to  have 
fought  it  well,  but  she  took  a  bad  turn  and  died. 
Considering  her  youth,  the  season  of  the  year, 

1  Dr.  Gordon  Davidson,  a  well-known  ophthalmic  surgeon 
of  Sydney,  thinks  that  Pepys  probably  suffered  from  irido- 
cyclitis,  the  result  of  some  toxaemia,  possibly  caused  by  his 
extreme  imprudence  in  eating  and  drinking. 

162 


MR.    AND    MRS.    PEPYS 

and  that  they  had  just  returned  from  the  Con- 
tinent, the  disease  was  possibly  typhoid.  Pepys 
erected  an  affectionate  memorial  to  her,  and  was 
later  on  buried  by  her  side.  He  took  the  last 
sacrament  with  her  as  she  lay  dying,  so  we  may 
reasonably  suppose  that  she  died  having  forgiven 
him,  and  it  is  not  unfair  to  imagine  that  the  trip 
abroad  was  a  second  honeymoon.  They  were 
two  grown-up  children,  playing  with  life  as  with 
a  new  toy. 

Mrs.  Pepys  was  liable  to  attacks  of  boils  in 
asterisks ;  and  a  Dr.  Williams  acquired  consider- 
able merit  by  supplying  her  with  plasters  and 
ointments.  On  November  16,  1663,  "  Mr. 
Hollyard  came,  and  he  and  I  about  our  great 
work  to  look  upon  my  wife's  malady,  which  he 
did,  and  it  seems  her  great  conflux  of  humours 
heretofore  that  did  use  to  swell  there  did  in 
breaking  leave  a  hollow  which  has  since  gone  in 
further  and  further  till  it  is  now  three  inches 
deep,  but  as  God  will  have  it  did  not  run  into  the 
body-ward,  but  keeps  to  the  outside  of  the  skin, 
and  so  he  will  be  forced  to  cut  open  all  along, 
and  which  my  heart  will  not  serve  me  to  see  done, 
and  yet  she  will  not  have  no  one  else  to  see  it 
done,  no,  not  even  her  mayde,  and  so  I  must  do 
it  poor  wretch  for  her."  Pepys  is  in  a  panic 
at  the  thought  of  assisting  at  the  opening  of  this 

163 


POST    MORTEM 

subcutaneous  abscess ;  one  can  feel  the  courage 
oozing  out  at  the  palms  of  his  hands  as  one  reads 
his  agitated  words.  To  his  joy,  next  morning 
Mr.  Hollyard,  on  second  thoughts,  "believes  a 
fomentation  will  do  as  well,  and  what  her  mayde 
will  be  able  to  do  as  well  without  knowing  what 
it  is  for,  but  only  that  it  is  for  the  piles."  Evi- 
dently the  "mayde's"  opinion  was  of  some  little 
moment  in  Mrs.  Pepys's  censorious  world.  Mr. 
Pepys  would  have  been  much  troubled  to  see 
his  wife  cut  before  his  face  :  "he  could  not  have 
borne  to  have  seen  it."  Mr.  Hollyard  received 
.£3  "  for  his  work  upon  my  wife,  but  whether  it  is 
cured  or  not  I  cannot  say,  but  he  says  it  will 
never  come  to  anything,  but  it  may  ooze  now  and 
again."  Mr.  Hollyard  was  evidently  easily  satis- 
fied. Of  course,  there  must  have  been  a  sinus 
running  in  somewhere,  but  it  is  impossible  to 
guess  at  its  origin.  Possibly  some  pelvic  sepsis ; 
possibly  an  ischio-rectal  abscess.  A  long  time 
before  he  had  noted  that  his  wife  was  suffering 
from  a  "  soare  belly,"  which  may  possibly  have 
been  the  beginning  of  the  trouble,  but  there  is 
no  mention  of  any  long  and  serious  illness  such 
as  usually  accompanies  para-metric  sepsis.  On 
the  whole,  I  fancy  ischio-rectal  abscess  to  be  the 
most  likely  explanation.  Later  on  she  suffers 
from  abscesses  in  the  cheek,  which  "  by  God's 

164 


MR.    AND    MRS.    PEPYS 

mercy  burst  into  the  mouth,  thus  not  spoiling 
her  face  "  ;  and  she  had  constant  trouble  with 
her  teeth.  It  is  thus  quite  probable  that  the 
origin  of  thewhole  illness  may  have  been  pyorrhcea, 
and  no  doubt  this  would  go  hard  with  her  in  the 
fever  from  which  she  died.  Possibly  this  may 
have  been  septic  pneumonia  arising  from  septic 
foci  in  the  mouth ;  but,  after  all,  it  is  idle  to 
speculate. 

Mrs.  Pepys  never  became  pregnant  during  the 
period  covered  by  the  Diary,  though  there  were 
one  or  two  false  alarms.  There  is  no  mention 
of  any  continuous  or  constant  ill-health,  such  as 
we  find  in  pyo-salpinx  or  severe  tubal  adhesions ; 
and  such  being  the  case,  her  sterility  may  quite 
likely  have  been  as  much  his  fault  as  hers. 

One  cannot  read  the  Diary  without  wishing 
that  we  could  have  heard  a  little  more  of  her  side 
of  the  questions  that  arose.  What  did  she  really 
think  of  her  husband  when  he  pulled  her  nose  ? 
Twice,  too,  no  less !  Stevenson  calls  her  "  a 
vulgar  woman."  Stevenson's  opinion  on  every 

i  matter  is  worthy  of  the  highest  respect,  as  that 
of  a  sensitive,  refined.,  and  artistic  soul ;    but  I 

I  cannot  help  thinking  that  sometimes  his  early 
Calvinistic  training  tended  to  make  him  rather 

^intolerant  to  human  weakness.     His  judgment  of 
Francois  Villon  always  seems  to  me  intolerant 


POST    MORTEM 

and  unjust,  and  he  showed  no  sign  in  his  novels 
of  ever  having  made  any  effort  to  comprehend 
the  difficulties  and  troubles  which  surround  women 
in  their  passage  through  the  world.     He  under- 
stood men — there  can  be  no  doubt  of  that ;   but 
I  doubt  if  he  understood  women  even  to  the 
small  extent  which  is  achieved  by  the  average 
man.     Personally   I   find   Mrs.   Pepys   far   from 
"  vulgar  " ;    generally  she  is  simply  delightful. 
True,  one  cannot  concur  with  her  action  over  the 
letter  to  Deb.     It  was   cruel  and  ungenerous. 
But  she  probably  knew  her  husband  well  by  that 
time,  and  judged  fairly  accurately  the  only  thing 
that  would  be  likely  to  bring  him  up  with  a  round 
turn,  and  again  we  have  not  the  privilege  of 
knowing  Deb  except  through  Pepys 's  possibly  too 
favourable  eyes.     Deb  may  have  been  all  that 
Mrs.    Pepys    thought   her,    and   she   may   have 
richly  deserved  what  she  got.    After  all,  there  is 
in  every  woman  protecting  her  husband  from 
the  onslaughts  of  "  vamps  "  not  a  little  of  the 
wild-cat.     Even    the    gentlest    of    women    will 
defend  her  husband — especially  a  husband  who 
retains  so  much  of  the  boy  as  Pepys — from  the 
attempts  of  wicked  women  to  steal  him,  poor 
innocent  love,  from  her  sacred  hearth  ;  will  defend 
him  with  bare  hands  and  claws,  and  totally  regard- 
less of  the  rules  of  combat ;   and  it  is  this  touch 

166 


MR.    AND    MRS.    PEPYS 

of  cattishness  in  Mrs.  Pepys  which  makes  one's 
heart  warm  towards  her.  For  all  we  know  Deb 
Willet  may  have  been  a  "  vamp."  Mrs.  Pepys 
was  certainly  the  "  absolute  female." 

Mr.  Pepys  suffered  from  stone  in  the  bladder 
before  he  began  to  keep  a  diary.  He  does  not 
appear  to  have  been  physically  a  hero ;  had  he 
been  a  general,  no  doubt  he  would  have  led  his 
army  bravely  from  the  rear  except  in  case  of  a 
retreat ;  but  so  great  was  the  pain  that  he 
submitted  his  body  to  the  knife  on  March  26, 
1658.  Anaesthetics  in  those  days  were  rudimen- 
tary, relaxing  rather  than  anaesthetizing  the 
patient.  There  is  some  reason  to  believe  that 
they  were  extensively  used  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
and  contemporaries  of  Shakespeare  seem  to  have 
looked  on  their  use  as  a  matter  of  course ;  but 
for  some  reason  they  became  less  popular,  and 
by  the  seventeenth  century  most  people  had  to 
undergo  their  operations  with  little  assistance 
beyond  stout  hearts  and  sluggish  nervous  systems. 

Cutting  for  the  stone  was  one  of  the  earliest  of 
surgical  operations.  In  ancient  days  it  was  first 
done  in  India,  and  the  glad  news  that  stones 
could  be  successfully  removed  from  the  living 
body  filtered  through  to  the  Greeks  some  cen- 
turies before  Christ.  Hippocrates  knew  all  about 
it,  and  the  operation  is  mentioned  in  that  Hippo- 
167 


POST    MORTEM 

cratic  oath  according  to  which  some  of  us  endeav- 
our to  regulate  our  lives.  At  first  it  was  only  done 
in  children,  because  it  was  considered  that  adult 
men  would  not  heal  properly,  and  the  only  result 
in  them  would  be  a  fistula.  The  child  was  held 
on  the  lap  of  some  muscular  assistant,  with  one 
or  two  not  less  muscular  men  holding  its  arms 
and  legs.  The  surgeon  put  one  or  two  fingers 
into  the  little  anus  and  tried  to  push  the  stone 
down  on  to  the  perineum,  helped  in  this  manoeu- 
vre by  hypogastric  pressure  from  another  assis- 
tant. He  then  cut  transversely  above  the  anus, 
strong  in  the  faith  that  he  might,  if  the  gods 
willed,  open  into  the  neck  of  the  bladder.  Next 
he  tried  to  push  out  the  stone  with  his  fingers 
still  in  the  anus ;  it  is  not  quite  clear  whether 
he  would  take  his  fingers  out  of  the  anus  and 
put  them  into  the  wound  or  vice  versa  ;  this 
failing,  he  would  seize  the  stone  with  forceps  and 
drag  it  through  the  perineum.  As  time  went  on 
it  was  discovered  that  more  than  three  or  four 
assistants  could  be  employed,  using  others  to  sit 
on  the  patient's  chest,  thus  adding  the  peine 
forte  et  dure  to  the  legitimate  terrors  of  ancient 
surgery  and  surrounding  him  with  a  mass  of  men. 
Imbued  with  a  spirit  of  unrest  by  the  struggles 
of  the  patient  the  mass  swayed  this  way  and  that, 
until  it  was  discovered  that  by  adding  yet  more 

168 


MR.    AND    MRS.    PEPYS 

valiants  to  the  wings  of  the  "  scrum,"  who  should 
answer  heave  with  counter-heave,  the  resultant 
of  the  opposing  forces  would  hold  even  the 
largest  perineum  steady  enough  for  the  surgeon 
to  operate  ;  and  men  came  under  the  knife  for 
stone.  Next  the  patient  was  tied  up  with  ropes, 
somewhat  in  the  style  we  used  in  our  boyhood's 
sport  of  cock-fighting.  What  a  piece  of  work  is 
the  Rope  !  How  perfect  in  all  its  works — 
from  the  Pyramids — built  with  the  aid  of  the 
Rope  and  the  Stick — to  the  execution  of  the  latest 
murderer.  One  might  write  pages  on  the  influ- 
ence of  the  Rope  on  human  progress ;  but  for 
our  purpose  we  may  simply  say  that  probably 
Mr.  Pepys  was  kept  quiet  with  many  yards  of 
hemp.  Those  who  cut  for  the  stone  were  special- 
ists, doing  nothing  else  ;  their  arrival  at  a  patient's 
house  must  have  resembled  an  invasion,  with  their 
vast  armamentarium  and  crowds  of  assistants. 
By  Pepys's  time  Marianus  Sanctus  had  lived — 
yes,  so  greatly  was  he  venerated  that  they  called 
him  "  Sanctus,"  the  Holy  Man  ;  Saint  Marianus 
if  you  will.  He  it  was,  in  Italy  in  1524,  who 
invented  the  apparatus  major,  which  made  the 
operation  a  little  less  barbarous  than  that  of  the 
Greeks.  This  God-sent  apparatus  consisted 
mainly  of  a  grooved  staff  to  be  shoved  into  the 
bladder  and  a  series  of  forceps.  You  cut  on  to 

169 


POST    MORTEM 

the  staff  as  the  first  step  of  the  operation ;  it 
was  believed  that  if  you  cut  in  the  middle  line 
in  the  raphe  the  wound  would  never  heal,  owing 
to  the  callosity  of  the  part ;  moreover,  if  you 
carried  your  incision  too  far  back  you  would 
cause  fatal  haemorrhage  from  the  inferior  haemorr- 
hoidal  veins.  Having,  then,  made  your  incision 
well  to  the  right  or  left,  you  exposed  the  urethra, 
made  a  good  big  hole  in  that  pipe,  and  inserted 
a  fine  able  pair  of  tongs,  with  which  you  seized 
hold  of  the  stone  and  crushed  it  if  you  could, 
pulling  it  out  in  bits ;  or  if  the  stone  were  hard, 
and  you  had  preternaturally  long  fingers,  you 
might  even  get  it  out  on  a  finger-tip.  It  was 
always  considered  the  mark  of  a  wise  surgeon 
to  carry  a  spare  stone  with  him  in  his  waistcoat 
pocket,  so  that  the  patient  might  at  least  have  a 
product  of  the  chase  to  see  if  the  surgeon  should 
find  his  normal  efforts  unrewarded.  Diagnosis 
was  little  more  advanced  in  those  days  than 
operative  surgery ;  there  are  numbers  of  condi- 
tions which  may  have  caused  symptoms  like  those 
of  a  stone,  and  it  was  always  well  for  the  surgeon 
to  be  prepared. 

This  would  be  the  operation  that  was  performed 
on  Mr.  Pepys.  The  results  in  many  cases  were 
disastrous ;  some  men  lost  control  of  their 
sphincter  vesicae  ;  many  were  left  with  urinary 

170 


MR.    AND    MRS.    PEPYS 

fistulae ;  in  many  the  procreative  power  was 
permanently  destroyed  by  interference  with  the 
seminal  vesicles  and  ducts.  Probably  some  of  us 
would  prefer  to  keep  our  calculi  rather  than  let 
a  mediaeval  stone-cutter  perform  upon  us ;  we 
are  a  degenerate  crew.  It  is  not  altogether 
displeasing  to  imagine  the  roars  of  the  unhappy 
Pepys,  trussed  and  helpless,  a  pallid  little  Mrs. 
Pepys  quaking  outside  the  door,  perhaps  not 
entirely  sorry  that  her  own  grievances  were 
being  so  adequately  avenged,  although  the  ven- 
geance was  vicarious ;  while  the  surgeon  wrestled 
with  a  large  uric  acid  calculus  which  could  with 
difficulty  be  dragged  through  the  wound.  It  is 
all  very  well  for  us  to  laugh  at  the  forth-right 
methods  of  our  ancestors ;  but,  considering  their 
difficulties — no  anaesthesia,  no  antiseptics,  want  of 
sufficient  surgical  practice,  and  the  fact  that 
few  could  ever  have  had  the  hardness  of  heart 
necessary  to  stand  the  patient's  bawlings,  it  is 
remarkable  that  they  did  so  well  and  that  the 
mortality  of  this  appalling  operation  seems  only 
to  have  been  from  15  to  20  per  cent.  Moreover 
we  may  be  pretty  sure  that  no  small  stone  would 
ever  be  operated  upon ;  men  postponed  the 
operation  until  the  discomfort  became  intolerable. 
It  remained  for  the  genius  of  Cheselden,  when 
Pepys  was  dead  and  possibly  in  heaven  some 

171 


POST    MORTEM 

twenty  years,  to  devise  the  operation  of  lateral 
lithotomy,  one  of  the  greatest  advances  ever 
made  in  surgery.  This  operation  survived  prac- 
tically unchanged  till  recent  times. 

Pepys's  heroism  was  not  in  vain,  and  was 
rewarded  by  a  long  life  free  from  serious  illness 
till  the  end.  March  26  became  to  him  a  holy 
day,  and  was  kept  up  with  pomp  for  many  years. 
The  people  of  the  house  wherein  he  had  suffered 
and  been  strong  were  invited  to  a  solemn  feast 
on  that  blessed  day,  and  as  the  baked  meats  went 
round  and  the  good  wine  glowed  in  the  decanters, 
Mr.  Pepys  stood  at  his  cheer  and  once  again 
recounted  the  tale  of  his  agony  and  his  courage. 
Nowadays,  when  we  are  operated  upon  with 
little  more  anxiety  than  we  should  display  over 
signing  a  lease,  it  is  difficult  to  imagine  a  state 
of  things  such  as  must  have  been  inevitable  in 
the  days  before  Simpson  and  Lister. 

The  stone  re-formed,  but  not  in  the  bladder. 
Once  you  have  a  uric  acid  calculus  you  can  never 
be  quite  sure  you  have  done  with  it  until  you 
are  dead,  and  in  the  case  of  Mr.  Pepys  recur- 
rence took  place  in  the  kidney.  When  he  died, 
an  old  man,  in  1703,  they  performed  a  post-mor- 
tem examination  on  his  body,  suspecting  that 
his  kidneys  were  at  fault,  and  in  the  left  kidney 
found  a  nest  of  no  less  than  seven  stones,  which 

172 


MR.    AND    MRS.     PEPYS 

must  have  been  silently  growing  in  the  calyces 
for  unnumbered  years.  Nor  does  it  seem  to  me 
impossible  that  his  extraordinary  incontinence 
— he  never  seems  to  have  been  able  to  resist  any 
feminine  allurement,  however  coarse — may  really 
have  been  due  to  the  continued  irritation  of  the 
old  scar  in  his  perineum.  There  is  often  a 
physical  condition  as  the  basis  for  this  type  of 
character,  and  some  trifling  irritation  may  make 
all  the  difference  between  virtue  and  concu- 
piscence. This  reasoning  is  probably  more  likely 
to  be  true  than  much  of  the  psycho-analysis 
which  is  at  present  so  fashionable  among  young 
ladies.  Possibly  also  the  sterility  of  Mrs.  Pepys 
may  have  been  partly  due  to  the  effects  of  the 
operation  upon  her  husband. 

One  unpleasant  result  to  Mr.  Pepys  was  the 
fact  that  whenever  he  crossed  his  legs  carelessly 
he  became  afflicted  with  a  mild  epididymitis — 
he  describes  it  much  less  politely  himself,  doubtless 
in  wrath.  His  little  failing  in  this  respect  must 
have  been  a  source  of  innocent  merriment  to 
the  many  friends  who  were  in  the  secret.  He 
was  also  troubled  with  attacks  of  severe  pain 
whenever  the  weather  turned  suddenly  cold. 
At  first  he  used  to  be  in  terror  lest  his  old  enemy 
had  returned,  but  he  learned  to  regard  the  attacks 
philosophically  as  part  of  the  common  heritage 

173 


POST    MORTEM 

of  mankind,  for  man  is  born  to  trouble  as  the 
sparks  fly  upward.  Probably  they  were  due  to 
reflex  irritation  from  the  stones  growing  in  the 
kidney.  He  does  not  seem  to  have  passed  any 
small  stones  per  urethram,  or  he  would  assuredly 
have  told  us.  He  took  great  interest  in  his  own 
emunctories — probably  other  people's,  too,  from 
certain  dark  sayings. 

Considering  the  by  no  means  holy  living  of 
Mr.  Pepys,  it  is  rather  remarkable  that  he  never 
seems  to  have  suffered  from  venereal  disease, 
and  this  leads  me  to  suspect  that  possibly  these 
ailments  were  not  so  common  in  the  England  of 
the  Restoration  as  they  are  to-day.  It  seems 
impossible  that  any  man  could  live  in  Sydney  so 
promiscuously  as  Mr.  Pepys  without  paying  the 
penalty ;  and  the  experience  of  our  army  in 
London  seems  to  show  that  things  there  must 
be  much  the  same  as  here  (Sydney).  I  often 
wonder  whether  Charles  II  and  his  courtiers  were 
really  representative  of  the  great  mass  of  people 
in  England  at  that  time  ;  probably  the  prevalence 
of  venereal  disease  in  modern  times  is  due  to  the 
enormous  increase  in  city  life ;  probably  men 
and  women  have  always  been  very  much  the  same 
from  generation  to  generation — inflammable  as 
straw,  given  the  opportunities  which  occur 
mainly  in  cities  and  crowded  houses. 

174 


MR.    AND    MRS.     PEPYS 

Ignoble  as  was  Pepys,  he  yet  showed  real  moral 
courage  during  the  Plague.  When  that  great 
enemy  of  cities  attacked  London  he,  very  wisely, 
sent  his  family  into  the  country  at  Woolwich, 
while  he  remained  faithful  to  his  duty  and 
continued  to  work  at  the  navy  in  Greenwich, 
Deptford,  and  London.  I  cannot  find  in  the 
Diary  any  mention  of  any  particular  attraction 
that  kept  him  in  London  during  those  awful 
five  months ;  he  would,  no  doubt,  have  mentioned 
her  name  if  there  had  been  such ;  yet  candour 
compels  me  to  observe  that  there  was  seldom  any 
one  attraction  for  Mr.  Pepys,  unless  poor  Deb 
Willet  may  have  somehow  mastered — tempor- 
arily— his  wayward  heart.  But,  as  might  have 
been  expected,  he  was  little  more  virtuous  during 
his  wife's  absence  than  before ;  indeed,  possibly 
the  imminent  danger  of  death  may  have  led  him 
to  enjoy  his  life  while  yet  he  might,  with  his 
usual  fits  of  agonized  remorse,  whose  effects  upon 
his  conduct  were  brief.  We  owe  far  more  to 
his  organizing  power  and  honesty — not  a  bigoted 
variety — than  is  generally  remembered.  His 
babble  is  not  the  best  medium  for  vigorous 
description,  and  you  will  not  get  from  Pepys  any 
idea  of  the  epidemic  comparable  with  that  which 
you  will  get  from  the  journalist  Defoe ;  yet 
through  those  months  there  lurks  a  feeling  of 

175 


POST    MORTEM 

horror  which  still  impresses  mankind.  The 
momentary  glimpse  of  a  citizen  who  stumbles  over 
the  "  corps  "  of  a  man  dead  of  the  plague,  and 
running  home  tells  his  pregnant  wife ;  she  dies 
of  fear  forthwith ;  a  man,  his  wife,  and  three 
children  dying  and  being  buried  on  one  day ; 
persons  quick  to-day  and  dead  to-morrow — not 
in  scores,  but  in  hundreds ;  ten  thousand  dying 
in  a  week ;  the  horrid  atmosphere  of  fear  and 
suspicion  which  overlay  London ;  and  Pepys 
himself  setting  his  papers  in  order,  so  that  men 
might  think  well  of  him  should  it  please  the  Lord 
to  take  him  suddenly  :  all  give  us  a  sense  of  doom 
all  the  more  poignant  because  recently  we  went 
through  a  much  milder  version  of  the  same 
experience  ourselves.  The  papers  talked  glibly 
of  the  influenza  as  "  The  Plague."  How  different 
it  was  from  the  real  bubonic  plague  is  shown  by 
the  statistics.  In  five  months  of  1665  there  died 
of  the  plague  in  the  little  London  of  that  day 
no  less  than  about  70,000  people,  according  to 
the  bills  of  mortality ;  in  truth,  probably  far 
more  ;  that  is  to  say,  probably  a  fifth  of  the 
people  perished.  There  is  no  doubt  that  the 
bubonic  plague  kept  back  the  development  of 
cities,  and  therefore  of  civilization,  for  centuries, 
and  that  the  partial  conquest  of  the  rat  has  been 
one  of  the  greatest  achievements  of  the  human 

176 


MR.    AND    MRS.    PEPYS 

race.  What  is  happening  in  Lord  Howe  Island, 
where  it  is  exceedingly  doubtful  whether  rats  or 
men  shall  survive  in  that  beautiful  speck  of  land, 
shows  how  slender  is  the  hold  which  mankind 
has  upon  the  earth  ;  and  wherever  the  rat  is  able 
to  breed  unchecked,  man  is  liable  to  sink  back 
into  savagery.  The  rat,  the  tubercle  bacillus,  and 
the  bacillus  of  typhoid  are  the  three  great  enemies 
of  civilization  ;  we  hold  our  position  against  them 
at  the  price  of  eternal  vigilance,  and  probably 
the  rat  is  not  the  least  deadly  of  these  enemies. 

I  need  not  go  through  the  Diary  in  search  of 
incidents ;  most  of  them,  while  intensely  amusing, 
are  rather  of  interest  to  the  psychologist  in  the 
study  of  self-revelation  than  to  the  medical  man. 
When  Pepys's  brother  lay  dying  the  doctor  in 
charge  hinted  that  possibly  the  trouble  might 
have  been  of  syphilitic  origin ;  Pepys  was  virtu- 
ously wrathful,  and  the  unhappy  doctor  had  to 
apologize  and  was  forthwith  discharged.  I  can- 
not here  narrate  how  they  proved  that  the 
unhappy  patient  had  never  had  syphilis  in  his 
life  ;  you  must  read  the  Diary  for  that.  Their 
method  would  not  have  satisfied  either  Wasser- 
mann  or  Bordet.  Another  time  Pepys  was  doing 
something  that  he  should  not  have  been  doing  at 
an  open  window  in  a  draught ;  the  Lord  punished 
him  by  striking  him  with  Bell's  palsy.  Still 

177  M 


POST    MORTEM 

again,  at  another  time  he  got  something  that 
seems  to  have  resembled  pseudo-ileus,  possibly 
reflex  from  his  latent  calculi.  Everybody  in  the 
street  was  much  distressed  at  his  anguish  ;  all  the 
ladies  sent  in  prescriptions  for  enemata  ;  the  one 
which  relieved  him  consisted  of  small  beer ! 
Indeed,  one  marvels  always  at  the  extraordinary 
interest  shown  by  Pepys's  lady-friends  in  his  most 
private  ailments.  London  must  have  been  a 
friendly  little  town  in  the  seventeenth  century, 
in  the  intervals  of  hanging  people  and  chopping 
off  heads. 

But  the  great  problem  remains  :  Why  did 
Pepys  write  down  all  these  intimate  details  of  his 
private  life  ?  Why  did  he  confess  to  things  which 
most  men  do  not  confess  even  to  themselves  ? 
Why  did  he  write  it  all  down  in  cypher  ?  Why, 
when  he  narrated  something  particularly  disgrace- 
ful, did  he  write  in  a  mongrel  dialect  of  bad 
French,  Italian,  Spanish,  and  Latin  ?  He  could 
not  have  seriously  believed  that  a  person  who  was 
able  to  read  the  Diary  would  not  be  able  to  read 
the  very  simple  foreign  words  with  which  it  is 
interspersed.  Most  amazing  of  all :  Why  did  he 
keep  the  manuscript  for  more  than  thirty  years,  a 
key  with  it  ?  One  thinks  of  the  fabled  ostrich 
who  buries  his  head  in  the  sand.  The  problem 
of  Pepys  still  remains  unsolved,  in  spite  of  the 


MR.    AND    MRS.    PEPYS 

efforts  of  Stevenson  in  Familiar  Studies  of  Men 
and  Books.  Stevenson  was  the  last  man  in  the 
world  to  understand  Pepys,  but  more  competent 
exegetists  have  tried  and  failed.  One  can  only 
say  that  his  failing  sight — which  Professor  Osborne 
of  Melbourne  attributes  to  astigmatism — has 
deprived  the  world  of  a  treasure  that  can  never 
be  sufficiently  regretted.  No  man  can  be  con- 
sidered educated  who  has  not  read  at  least  part 
of  the  Diary  ;  in  no  other  way  is  it  possible  to  get 
so  vivid  a  picture  of  the  ordinary  people  of  a 
past  age ;  as  we  read  they  seem  to  live  before  us, 
and  it  comes  as  a  shock  to  remember  that  poor 
Pall  Pepys — his  plain  sister — and  "  my  wife  " 
and  Mrs.  Batelier — "  my  pretty  valentine  " — 
and  Sir  William  Coventry  and  Mercer,  and  the 
hundreds  more  who  pass  so  vividly  before  us,  are 
all  dead  these  centuries. 

If  this  little  paper  shall  send  some  to  the 
reading  of  this  most  extraordinary  book,  I  shall 
be  more  than  satisfied.  The  only  edition  which 
is  worth  while  is  Wheatley's,  in  ten  volumes, 
with  portraits  and  a  volume  of  Pepysiana.  The 
smaller  editions  are  apt  to  transmute  Pepys 
into  an  ordinary  humdrum  and  industrious  civil 
servant. 


179 


Edward  Gibbon 

FOR  many  years  it  has  been  taught — I  have 
taught  it  myself  to  generations  of  students 
— that  Gibbon's  hydrocele  surpassed  in  greatness 
all  other  hydroceles,  that  it  contained  twelve 
pints  of  fluid,  and  that  it  was,  in  short,  one  of 
those  monstrous  things  which  exist  mainly  in 
romance;  one  of  those  chimeras  which  grow  in 
the  minds  of  the  half -informed  and  of  those  who 
wish  to  be  deceived.  For  a  brief  moment  this 
chimera  looms  its  huge  bulk  over  serious  history ; 
it  is  pricked  ;  it  disappears  for  ever,  carrying  with 
it  into  the  shades  the  greatest  of  historians,  per- 
haps the  greatest  of  English  prose  writers.  What 
do  we  really  know  about  it  ? 

The  first  hint  of  trouble  given  by  the  hydrocele 
occurs  in  a  letter  by  Gibbon  to  his  friend  Lord 
Sheffield.  It  is  so  delicious,  so  typical  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  of  which  Gibbon  himself 
was  probably  the  most  typical  representative, 
that  I  cannot  resist  re-telling  it.  Two  days 
before,  he  has  hinted  to  his  friend  that  he  was 
rather  unwell ;  now  he  modestly  draws  the  veil. 
"  Have  you  never  observed,  through  my  inex- 
pressibles, a  large  prominency  circa  genitalia^ 

1 80 


EDWARD    GIBBON 

which,  as  it  was  not  very  painful  and  very  little 
troublesome,  I  had  strangely  neglected  for  many 
years  ?  "  "A  large  prominency  circa  genitalia  " 
is  a  variation  on  the  "  lump  in  me  privits,  doctor," 
to  which  we  are  more  accustomed.  Gibbon's  is 
the  more  graceful,  and  reminds  us  of  the  mind 
which  had  described  chivalry  as  the  "  worship 
of  God  and  the  ladies " ;  the  courteous  and  urbane 
turn  of  speech  which  refuses  to  call  a  spade  a  spade 
lest  some  polite  ear  may  be  offended. 

Gibbon  had  been  staying  at  Sheffield  House 
in  the  preceding  June — the  letter  was  written 
in  November — and  his  friends  all  noted  that  "  Mr. 
G."  had  become  strangely  loath  to  take  exercise 
and  very  inert  in  his  movements.  Indeed,  he 
had  detained  the  house-party  in  the  house  during 
lovely  days  together  while  he  had  orated  to  them 
on  the  folly  of  unnecessary  exertion ;  and  such 
was  his  charm  that  every  one,  both  women  as 
well  as  men,  seems  to  have  cheerfully  given  up 
the  glorious  English  June  weather  to  keep  him 
company.  Never  was  he  more  brilliant — never 
a  more  delightful  companion ;  yet  all  the  time 
he  was  like  the  Spartan  boy  and  the  wolf,  for  he 
knew  of  his  secret  trouble,  yet  he  thought  that 
no  one  else  suspected.  It  is  an  instance  of  how 
little  we  see  ourselves  as  others  see  us  that  this 
supremely  able  man,  who  could  see  as  far  into  a 

181 


POST    MORTEM 

millstone  as  anyone,  lived  for  years  with  a  hydro- 
cele  that  reached  below  his  knees  while  he  wore 
the  tight  breeches  of  the  eighteenth  century  and 
was  in  the  fond  delusion  that  nobody  else  knew 
anything  about  it.  Of  course,  everybody  knew ; 
probably  it  had  been  the  cause  of  secret  merriment 
among  all  his  acquaintance  ;  when  the  tragedy 
came  to  its  last  act  it  turned  out  that  every  one 
had  been  talking  about  it  all  the  time,  and  that 
they  had  thought  it  to  be  a  rupture  about  which 
Mr.  Gibbon  had  of  course  taken  advice. 

After  leaving  Sheffield  House  the  hydrocele 
suddenly  increased,  as  Gibbon  himself  says,  "  most 
stupendously  "  ;  and  it  began  to  dawn  upon  him 
that  it  "  ought  to  be  diminished."  So  he  called 
upon  Dr.  Walter  Farquhar ;  and  Dr.  Farquhar 
was  very  serious  and  called  in  Dr.  Cline,  "a  surgeon 
of  the  first  eminence,"  both  of  whom  "  viewed 
it  and  palped  it  "  and  pronounced  it  a  hydrocele. 
Mr.  Gibbon,  with  his  usual  good  sense  and  calm 
mind,  prepared  to  face  the  necessary  "  operation  " 
and  a  future  prospect  of  wearing  a  truss  which 
Dr.  Cline  intended  to  order  for  him.  In  the 
meantime  he  was  to  crawl  about  with  some 
labour  and  "  much  indecency,"  and  he  prayed 
Lord  Sheffield  to  "  varnish  the  business  to  the 
ladies,  yet  I  am  much  afraid  it  will  become 
public,"  as  if  anything  could  any  longer  conceal 

182 


EDWARD    GIBBON 

the  existence  of  this  monstrous  chimera.  It  is 
hardly  credible,  but  Gibbon  had  had  the  hydro- 
cele  since  1761 — thirty-two  years — yet  had  never 
even  hinted  of  it  to  Lord  Sheffield,  with  whom 
he  had  probably  discussed  every  other  fact 
connected  with  his  life ;  and  had  even  forbidden 
his  valet  to  mention  it  in  his  presence  or  to  anyone 
else.  Gibbon,  the  historian  who,  more  than 
any  other,  set  Reason  and  Common  Sense  on  their 
thrones,  seems  to  have  been  ashamed  of  his  hydro- 
cele.  Once  more  we  wonder  how  little  even  able 
men  may  perceive  the  truth  of  things !  In  1761 
he  had  consulted  Caesar  Hawkins,  who  apparently 
had  not  been  able  to  make  up  his  mind  whether 
it  was  a  hernia  or  a  hydrocele.  In  1787  Lord 
Sheffield  had  noticed  a  sudden  great  increase  in 
the  size  of  the  thing;  and  in  1793,  as  we  have 
seen,  it  came  to  tragedy. 

He  was  tapped  for  the  hydrocele  on  November 
14  ;  four  quarts  of  fluid  were  removed,  the  swell- 
ing was  diminished  to  nearly  half  its  size,  and  the 
remaining  part  was  a  "  soft  irregular  mass." 
Evidently  there  was  more  there  than  a  simple 
hydrocele,  and  straightway  it  began  to  refill  so 
rapidly  that  they  had  to  agree  to  re-tap  it  in  a 
fortnight.  Mr.  Cline  must  have  felt  anxious ; 
he  would  know  "  how  many  beans  make  five  " 
well  enough,  and  his  patient  was  the  most  dis- 

183 


POST    MORTEM 

tinguished  man  in  the  world.  Many  students 
who  have  at  examinations  in  clinical  surgery 
wrestled  with  Cline's  splint  will  probably  consider 
that  Cline's  punishment  for  inventing  that 
weapon  really  began  on  the  day  when  he  per- 
ceived Gibbon's  hydrocele  to  be  rapidly  re-filling. 
The  fortnight  passed,  and  the  second  tapping  took 
place,  "  much  longer,  more  searching,  and  more 
painful "  than  before,  though  only  three  quarts 
of  fluid  were  removed ;  yet  Mr.  Gibbon  said  he 
was  much  more  relieved  than  by  the  first  attempt. 
Thence  he  went  to  stay  with  Lord  Auckland  at  a 
place  called  Eden  Farm  ;  thence  again  to  Sheffield 
House.  There,  in  the  dear  house  which  to  him 
was  a  home,  he  was  more  brilliant  than  ever 
before.  It  was  his  "  swan  song."  A  few  days 
later  he  was  in  great  pain  and  moved  with  diffi- 
culty, the  swelling  again  increased  enormously, 
inflammation  set  in,  and  he  became  fevered,  and 
his  friends  insisted  on  his  return  to  London.  He 
returned  in  January,  1794,  reaching  his  chambers 
after  a  night  of  agony  in  the  coach ;  and  Cline 
again  tapped  him  on  January  13.  By  this  time 
the  tumour  was  enormous,  ulcerated  and  inflamed, 
and  Cline  got  away  six  quarts.  On  January  15  he 
felt  fairly  well  except  for  an  occasional  pain  in  his 
stomach,  and  he  told  some  of  his  friends  that  he 
thought  he  might  probably  live  for  twenty  years. 

184 


EDWARD    GIBBON 

That  night  he  had  great  pain,  and  got  his  valet 
to  apply  hot  napkins  to  his  abdomen  ;  he  felt  that 
he  wished  to  vomit.  At  four  in  the  morning  his 
pain  became  much  easier,  and  at  eight  he  was 
able  to  rise  unaided ;  but  by  nine  he  was  glad 
to  get  back  into  bed,  although  he  felt,  as  he  said, 
'plus  adroit  than  he  had  felt  for  months.  By- 
eleven  he  was  speechless  and  obviously  dying, 
and  by  I  p.m.  he  was  dead. 

I  believe  that  the  key  to  this  extraordinary 
and  confused  narrative  is  to  be  found  in  the  visit 
to  Caesar  Hawkins  thirty  years  before,  when 
that  competent  surgeon  was  unable  to  satisfy 
himself  as  to  whether  he  was  dealing  with  a 
rupture  or  a  hydrocele.  It  seems  now  clear  that 
in  reality  it  was  both ;  and  Gibbon,  who  was  a 
corpulent  man  with  a  pendulous  abdomen, 
lived  for  thirty  years  without  taking  care  of  it. 
But  he  lived  very  quietly ;  he  took  no  exercise ; 
he  was  a  man  of  calm,  placid,  and  unruffled  mind  ; 
probably  no  man  was  less  likely  to  be  incommoded 
by  a  hernia,  especially  if  the  sac  had  a  large  wide 
mouth  and  the  contents  were  mainly  fat.  But 
the  time  came  when  the  intra-abdominal  pressure 
of  the  growing  omentum  became  too  great,  and 
the  swelling  enormously  increased,  first  in  1787 
and  again  in  1793.  When  Cline  first  tapped  the 
swelling  he  was  obviously  aware  that  there  was 

185 


POST    MORTEM 

more  present  than  a  hydrocele,  because  he  warned 
Gibbon  that  he  would  have  to  wear  a  truss  after- 
wards, and  moreover,  though  he  removed  four 
quarts  of  fluid,  yet  the  swelling  was  only  reduced 
by  a  half.  Probably  the  soft  irregular  mass 
which  he  then  left  behind  was  simply  omentum 
which  had  come  down  from  the  abdomen.  But 
why  did  the  swelling  begin  to  grow  again  im- 
mediately ?  That  is  not  the  usual  way  with  a 
hydrocele,  whose  growth  and  everything  con- 
nected with  it  are  usually  indolently  leisurely. 
Could  there  have  been  a  malignant  tumour  in 
course  of  formation  ?  But  if  so,  would  not  that 
have  caused  more  trouble  ?  Nor  would  it  have 
given  the  impression  of  being  a  soft  irregular 
mass.  However,  the  second  tapping  was  longer 
and  more  painful  than  the  first,  though  it  removed 
less  fluid ;  and  Gibbon  was  more  relieved.  But 
this  tapping  was  followed  by  inflammation.  What 
had  happened  ?  Possibly  Cline  had  found  the 
epididymis ;  more  probably  his  trochar  was 
septic,  like  all  other  instruments  of  that  pre- 
antiseptic  period ;  at  all  events,  the  thing  went 
from  bad  to  worse,  grew  enormously,  and  severe 
constitutional  symptoms  set  in.  The  ulceration 
and  redness  of  the  skin,  which  was  no  doubt 
filthy  enough — surgically  speaking — after  thirty 
years  of  hydrocele,  look  uncommonly  like  sup- 

186 


EDWARD    GIBBON 

purative  epididymitis,  or  suppuration  in  the 
hydrocele.  Thus  Gibbon  goes  on  for  a  few  days, 
able  to  move  about,  though  with  difficulty,  till 
he  cheers  up  and  seems  to  be  recovering ;  then 
falls  the  axe,  and  he  dies  a  few  hours  after  saying 
that  he  thought  he  had  a  good  chance  of  living 
for  twenty  years. 

Could  the  great  septic  hydrocele,  connected 
with  the  abdomen  through  the  inguinal  ring,  have 
suddenly  burst  its  bonds  and  flooded  the  peri- 
toneum with  streptococci  ?  Streptococcic  peri- 
tonitis is  one  of  the  most  appalling  diseases  in 
surgery.  Its  symptoms  to  begin  with  are  vague, 
and  it  spreads  with  the  rapidity  of  a  grass  fire  in 
summer.  After  an  abdominal  section  the  patient 
suddenly  feels  exceedingly  weak,  there  is  a  little 
lazy  vomiting,  the  abdomen  becomes  distended, 
the  pulse  goes  to  pieces  in  a  few  hours,  and  death 
occurs  rapidly  while  the  mind  is  yet  clear.  The 
surgeon  usually  calls  it  "  shock,"  or  thinks  in  his 
own  heart  that  his  assistant  is  a  careless  fellow; 
but  the  real  truth  is  that  streptococci  have  some- 
how been  introduced  into  the  abdomen  and 
have  slain  the  patient  without  giving  time  for 
the  formation  of  adhesions  whereby  they  might 
have  been  shut  off  and  ultimately  destroyed. 
That  is  what  I  believe  happened  to  Edward 
Gibbon. 

187 


POST    MORTEM 

The  loss  to  literature  through  this  untimely 
tragedy  was,  of  course,  irreparable.  Gibbon  had 
taken  twenty  years  to  mature  his  unrivalled 
literary  art.  His  style  was  the  result  of  unremit- 
ting labour  and  exquisite  literary  taste;  if  one 
accustoms  oneself  to  the  constant  antitheses — 
which  occasionally  give  the  impression  of  being 
forced  almost  more  for  the  sake  of  dramatic 
emphasis  than  truth — one  must  be  struck  with 
the  unvarying  majesty  and  haunting  music  of  the 
diction,  illumined  by  an  irony  so  sly,  so  subtle — 
possibly  a  trifle  malicious — that  one  simmers 
with  joyous  appreciation  in  the  reading.  That 
sort  of  irony  is  more  appreciated  by  the  onlookers 
than  by  its  victims,  and  it  is  not  to  be  marvelled 
at  that  religious  people  felt  deeply  aggrieved  for 
many  years  at  the  application  of  it  to  the  Early 
Christians.  Yet,  after  all,  what  Gibbon  did  was 
nothing  more  than  to  show  them  as  men  like 
others ;  he  merely  showed  that  the  evidence 
concerning  the  beginnings  of  Christendom  was 
less  reliable  than  the  Church  had  supposed.  The 
Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire  shows  the 
history  of  the  world  for  more  than  a  thousand 
years,  so  vividly,  so  dramatically,  that  the  charac- 
ters— who  are  great  nations — move  on  the  stage 
like  actors,  and  the  men  who  led  them  live  in  a 
remarkable  flood  of  living  light.  The  general 

188 


EDWARD    GIBBON 

effect  upon  the  reader  is  as  if  he  were  comfortably 
seated  in  a  moving  balloon  traversing  over  Time 
as  over  continents ;  as  if  he  were  seated  in  Mr. 
Wells's  "  Time  Machine,"  viewing  the  disordered 
beginnings  of  modern  civilization.  I  believe  that 
no  serious  flaw  in  Gibbon's  history  has  been  found, 
from  the  point  of  view  of  accuracy.  Some 
people  have  found  it  too  much  a  chronique  scanda- 
leuse,  and  some  modern  historians  appear  to 
consider  that  history  should  be  written  in  a  dull 
and  pedantic  style  rather  than  be  made  to  live ; 
furthermore,  the  great  advance  in  knowledge  of 
the  Slavonic  peoples  has  tended  to  modify  some 
of  his  conclusions.  Nevertheless,  Gibbon  remains, 
and  so  far  as  we  can  see,  will  ever  remain,  the 
greatest  of  historians.  Though  we  might  not 
have  had  another  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman 
Empire,  yet  we  might  reasonably  have  looked  for 
the  completion  of  that  autobiography  which  had 
such  a  brilliant  beginning.  What  would  we  not 
give  if  that  cool  and  appraising  mind,  which 
had  raised  Justinian  and  Belisarius  from  the  dead 
and  caused  them  to  live  again  in  the  hearts  of 
mankind,  could  have  given  its  impressions  of  the 
momentous  period  in  which  it  came  to  maturity  ? 
If,  instead  of  England  receiving  its  strongest 
impression  of  the  French  Revolution  from  Carlyle 
— whose  powers  of  declamation  were  more  potent 

1 80 


POST    MORTEM 

than  his  sense  of  truth — it  had  been  swayed  from 
the  beginning  by  Gibbon?  In  such  a  case  the 
history  of  modern  England — possibly  of  modern 
Russia — might  have  been  widely  different  from 
what  we  have  already  seen. 


190 


Jean  Paul    Marat 

IT  has  always  been  the  pride  of  the  medical 
profession  that  its  aim  is  to  benefit  mankind  ; 
but  opinions  may  differ  as  to  how  far  this  aim  was 
fulfilled  by  one  of  our  most  eminent  confreres, 
Jean  Paul  Marat.  He  was  born  in  Neufchatel 
of  a  marriage  between  a  Sardinian  man  and  a 
Swiss  woman,  and  studied  medicine  at  Bordeaux  ; 
thence,  after  a  time  at  Paris,  he  went  to  London, 
and  for  some  years  practised  there.  In  London 
he  published  A  Philosophical  Essay  on  Man, 
wherein  he  showed  enormous  knowledge  of  the 
English,  German,  French,  Italian,  and  Spanish 
philosophers ;  and  advanced  the  thesis  that  a 
knowledge  of  science  was  necessary  for  eminence 
as  a  philosopher.  By  this  essay  he  fell  foul  of 
Voltaire,  who  answered  him  tartly  that  nobody 
objected  to  his  opinions,  but  that  at  least  he 
might  learn  to  express  them  more  politely, 
especially  when  dealing  with  men  of  greater 
brains  than  his  own. 

The  French  Revolution  was  threatening ;  the 
coming  storm  was  already  thundering,  when,  in 
1788,  Marat's  ill-balanced  mind  led  him  to 
abandon  medicine  and  take  to  politics.  He 

191 


POST    MORTEM 

returned  to  Paris,  beginning  the  newspaper  UAmi 
du  Peuple,  which  he  continued  to  edit  till  late 
in  1792.  His  policy  was  simple,  and  touched 
the  great  heart  of  the  people.  "  Whatsoever 
things  were  pure,  whatsoever  things  were  of  good 
repute,  whatsoever  things  were  honest  " — so  be 
it  that  they  were  not  Jean  Paul  Marat's,  those 
things  he  vilified.  He  suspected  everybody,  and 
constantly  cried,  v<  Nous  sommes  trahis  " — that 
battle  cry  of  Marat  which  remained  the  battle- 
cry  of  Paris  from  that  day  to  1914.  By  his 
violent  attacks  on  every  one  he  made  Paris  too 
hot  to  hold  him,  and  once  again  retired  to  London. 
Later  he  returned  to  Paris,  apparently  at  the 
request  of  men  who  desired  to  use  his  literary 
skill  and  violent  doctrines ;  he  had  to  hide  in 
cellars  and  sewers,  where  it  was  said  he  contracted 
that  loathsome  skin  disease  which  was  henceforth 
to  make  his  life  intolerable,  and  to  force  him  to 
spend  much  of  his  time  in  a  hot-water  bath,  and 
would  have  shortly  killed  him  only  for  the  inter- 
vention of  Charlotte  Corday.  In  these  haunts 
he  was  attended  only  by  Simonne  Everard,  whose 
loyalty  goes  to  show  either  that  there  was  some 
good  even  in  Marat,  or  that  there  is  no  man  so 
frightful  but  that  some  woman  may  be  found 
to  love  him.  Finally,  he  was  elected  to  the 
Convention,  and  took  his  seat.  There  he  con- 

192 


JEAN    PAUL    MARAT 

tinued  his  violent  attacks  upon  everybody,  urging 
that  the  "  gangrene  "  of  the  aristocracy  and  bour- 
geoisie should  be  amputated  from  the  State. 
His  ideas  of  political  economy  appear  to  have 
foreshadowed  those  of  Karl  Marx — that  the 
proletariat  should  possess  everything,  and  that 
nobody  else  should  possess  anything.  Daily 
increasing  numbers  of  heads  should  fall  in  the 
sacred  names  of  Liberty,  Fraternity,  and  Equality. 
At  first  a  mere  600  would  have  satisfied  him,  but 
the  number  rapidly  increased,  first  to  10,000, 
then  to  260,000.  To  this  number  he  appeared 
faithful,  for  he  seldom  exceeded  it ;  his  most 
glorious  vision  was  only  of  killing  300,000  daily. 

He  devoted  his  energies  to  attacking  those 
who  appeared  abler  and  better  than  himself,  and 
the  most  prominent  object  of  his  hatred  was  the 
party  of  the  Girondins.  These  were  so  called 
because  most  of  them  came  from  the  Gironde, 
and  they  are  best  described  as  people  who  wished 
that  France  should  be  governed  by  a  sane  and 
moderate  democracy,  such  as  they  wrongly 
imagined  the  Roman  Republic  to  have  been. 
They  were  gentle  and  clever  visionaries,  who 
dreamed  dreams ;  they  advised,  but  did  not  dare 
to  perform ;  the  most  famous  names  which  have 
survived  are  those  of  Brissot,  Roland,  and  Bar- 
baroux.  Madame  Roland,  who  has  become  of 

I93  N 


POST    MORTEM 

legendary  fame,  was  considered  their  "  soul  " ; 
concerning  her,  shouts  Carlyle  :  "  Radiant  with 
enthusiasm  are  those  dark  eyes,  is  that  strong 
Minerva-face,  looking  dignity  and  earnest  joy ; 
joyfullest  she  where  all  are  joyful.  Reader, 
mark  that  queen-like  burgher-woman  ;  beautiful, 
Amazonian-graceful  to  the  eye ;  more  so  to  the 
mind.  Unconscious  of  her  worth  (as  all  worth 
is),  of  her  greatness,  of  her  crystal-clearness, 
genuine,  the  creature  of  Sincerity  and  Nature, 
in  an  age  of  Artificiality,  Pollution  and  Cant  " — 
and  so  forth.  But  Carlyle  was  writing  prose- 
poetry,  sacrificing  truth  to  effect,  and  it  is  unwise 
to  take  his  poetical  descriptions  as  accurate 
Recent  researches  have  shown  that  possibly 
Manon  Roland  was  not  so  pure,  honest,  and  well- 
intentioned  as  Carlyle  thought — nor  so  "  crystal- 
clear."  Summed  up,  the  Girondins  represented 
the  middle  classes,  and  the  battle  was  now  set 
between  them  and  the  "  unwashed,"  led  by 
Robespierre,  Danton,  and  Marat. 

What  manner  of  man,  then,  was  this  Marat, 
physically  ?  Extraordinary  !  Semi-human  from 
most  accounts.  Says  Carlyle  :  "  O  Marat,  thou 
remarkablest  horse-leech,  once  in  d'Artois' 
stable,  as  thy  bleared  soul  looks  forth  through  thy 
bleared,  dull-acrid,  woe-stricken  face,  what  seest 
thou  in  all  this  ?  "  Again  :  "  One  most  squalidest 

194 


JEAN    PAUL    MARAT 

bleared  mortal,  redolent  of  soot  and  horse- 
drugs."  There  appears  to  have  been  a  certain 
amount  of  foundation  for  the  lie  that  Marat  had 
been  nothing  more  than  a  horse-doctor,  for  once 
when  he  was  brevet-surgeon  to  the  body-guard 
of  the  Compte  d'Artois  he  had  found  that  he 
could  not  make  a  living,  and  had  been  driven  to 
dispense  medicines  for  men  and  horses ;  his 
enemies  afterwards  said  that  he  had  never  been 
anything  more  than  a  horse-leech.  Let  us  not 
deprive  our  own  profession  of  one  of  its  orna- 
ments. His  admirer  Panis  said  that  while  Marat 
was  hiding  in  the  cellars,  "  he  remained  for 
six  weeks  on  one  buttock  in  a  dungeon " ; 
immediately,  therefore,  he  was  likened  to  St. 
Simeon  Stylites,  who,  outside  Antioch,  built 
himself  a  high  column,  repaired  him  to  the  top, 
and  stood  there  bowing  and  glorifying  God  for 
thirty  years,  until  he  became  covered  with  sores. 
Dr.  Moore  gives  the  best  description  of  him. 
"  Marat  is  a  little  man  of  a  cadaverous  com- 
plexion, and  countenance  exceedingly  expressive 
of  his  disposition ;  to  a  painter  of  massacres 
Marat's  head  would  be  invaluable.  Such  heads 
are  care  in  this  country  (England),  yet  they  are 
sometimes  to  be  met  with  in  the  Old  Bailey." 
Marat's  head  was  enormous ;  he  was  less  than 
five  feet  high,  with  shrivelled  limbs  and  yellow 

195 


POST    MORTEM 

face  ;  one  eye  was  higher  placed  than  the  other, 
"so  that  he  looked  lop-sided."  As  for  his  skin- 
disease,  modern  writers  seem  to  consider  that  we 
should  nowadays  call  it  "  dermatitis  herpetifor- 
mis,"  though  his  political  friends  artlessly  thought 
it  was  due  to  the  humours  generated  by  excessive 
patriotism  in  so  small  a  body  attacking  his  skin, 
and  thus  should  be  counted  for  a  virtue.  Carlyle 
hints  that  it  was  syphilis,  thus  following  in  the 
easy  track  of  those  who  attribute  to  syphilis 
those  things  which  they  cannot  understand.  But 
syphilis,  even  if  painful,  would  not  have  been 
relieved  by  sitting  for  hours  daily  in  a  hot  bath. 
Mentally  he  appears  to  have  been  a  paranoiac, 
to  quote  a  recent  historical  diagnosis  by  Dr. 
Charles  W.  Burr,  of  Philadelphia.  Marat  suffered 
for  many  years  from  delusions  of  persecution, 
which  some  people  appear  to  take  at  their  face 
value ;  the  New  Age  Encyclopedia  specially 
remarks  on  the  amount  of  persecution  that  he 
endured — probably  all  delusional,  unless  we  are 
to  consider  the  natural  efforts  of  people  in  self- 
defence  to  be  persecution.  He  suffered  from 
tremendous  and  persistent  "  ego-mania,"  and 
appears  to  have  believed  that  he  had  a  greater 
intellect  than  Voltaire.  Marat,  whom  the  mass 
of  mankind  regarded  with  horror,  fancied  him- 
self a  popular  physician,  whom  crowds  would 

196 


JEAN    PAUL    MARAT 

have  consulted  but  for  the  unreasonable  and 
successful  hatred  of  his  enemies.  Possibly  failure 
at  his  profession,  combined  with  the  unspeakable 
irritation  of  his  disease,  may  have  embittered  his 
mind,  and  for  the  last  few  months  of  his  life 
there  can  be  little  doubt  that  Marat  was  in- 
sane. 

It  seems  to  be  certain  that  he  organized,  if  he 
did  not  originate,  the  frightful  September  massa- 
cres. There  were  many  hundreds  of  Royalists 
in  the  prisons,  who  were  becoming  a  nuisance. 
The  Revolution  was  hanging  fire,  and  well-mean- 
ing enthusiasts  began  to  fear  that  the  dull  clod 
of  a  populace  would  not  rise  in  its  might  to  end 
the  aristocracy ;  so  it  was  decided  to  abolish 
these  unfortunate  prisoners.  A  tribunal  was 
formed  to  sit  in  judgment ;  outside  waited  a 
great  crowd  of  murderers  hired  for  the  occa- 
sion. The  prisoners  were  led  before  the 
tribunal,  and  released  into  the  street,  where 
they  were  received  by  the  murderers  and  were 
duly  "  released  " — from  this  sorrowful  world. 
The  most  famous  victim  was  the  good  and  gentle 
Princess  de  Lamballe,  Superintendent  of  the 
Queen's  Household.  The  judge  at  her  trial  was 
the  notorious  Hebert,  anarchist,  atheist,  and 
savage,  afterwards  executed  by  his  friend  Robes- 
pierre when  he  had  served  his  turn.  Madame 

197 


POST    MORTEM 

collapsed  with  terror,  and  fainted  repeatedly 
during  the  mockery  of  a  trial,  but  when  Hebert 
said  the  usual  ironical,  "  Let  Madame  be  re- 
leased," she  walked  to  the  door.  When  she  saw 
the  murderers  with  their  bloody  swords  she 
shrank  back  and  shrieked,  "  Fi — horreur."  They 
cut  her  in  pieces ;  but  decency  forbids  that  I 
should  say  what  they  did  with  all  the  pieces. 
Carlyle,  who  here  speaks  truth,  has  a  dark  saying 
about  "  obscene  horrors  with  moustachio  grands- 
levres"  which  is  near  enough  for  anatomists  to 
understand.  The  murderers  then  stuck  her  head 
on  a  pike,  and  held  her  fair  curls  before  the 
Queen's  window  as  an  oriflamme  in  the  name  of 
Liberty.  Madame  was  but  one  of  1,100  whose 
insane  butchery  must  be  laid  to  the  door  of  Marat; 
though  some  friends  of  the  Bolsheviks  endeavour 
to  acquit  him  we  can  only  say  that  if  it  was  not 
his  work  it  looks  uncommonly  like  it. 

The  battle  between  the  Girondins,  who  were 
bad  fellows,  but  less  bad  than  their  enemies  of 
the  "  Mountain " — Robespierre,  Danton,  and 
Marat — continued  ;  it  was  a  case  of  arcades  ambo, 
which  Bryon  translates  "  blackguards  both," 
though  Virgil,  who  wrote  the  line — in  the 
Georgics — probably  meant  something  much 
coarser.  The  "  Mountain  "  began  to  get  the 
upper  hand,  and  the  Girondins  fled  for  their 

198 


JEAN    PAUL    MARAT 

lives,  or  went  to  the  guillotine.     The  Revolution 
was  already  "  devouring  its  children." 

At  Caen  in  Normandy  there  lived  a  young 
woman,  daughter  of  a  decayed  noble  family 
which  in  happier  days  had  been  named  d'Armont, 
now  Corday.  Her  name  was  Marie  Charlotte 
d'Armont,  and  she  is  known  to  history  as  Charlotte 
Corday.  She  had  been  well  educated,  had  read 
Rousseau,  Voltaire,  and  the  encyclopaedists,  be- 
sides being  fascinated  by  a  dream  of  an  imaginary 
State  which  she  had  been  taught  to  call  the 
Roman  Republic,  in  which  the  "  tyrannicide  " 
Brutus  loomed  much  larger  and  more  glorious 
than  in  reality.  Some  Girondists  fled  to  Caen 
to  escape  the  vengeance  of  Marat ;  Charlotte, 
horrified,  resolved  that  the  monster  should  die ; 
she  herself  was  then  nearly  twenty-five  years  of 
age.  I  have  a  picture  of  her  which  seems  to  fit 
in  very  well  with  one's  preconceived  ideas  of  her 
character.  She  was  five  feet  one  inch  in  height, 
with  a  well-proportioned  figure,  and  she  had  a 
wonderful  mass  of  chestnut  hair ;  her  eyes  were 
large,  grey,  and  set  widely  apart ;  the  general 
expression  of  her  face  was  thoughtful  and  earnest. 
Perhaps  it  would  hardly  be  respectful  to  call  her 
an  "  intense  "  young  lady  ;  but  there  was  a  young 
lady  who  sometimes  used  to  consult  me  who 
might  very  well  have  sat  for  the  portrait ;  she 

199 


POST    MORTEM 

possessed  a  type  of  somewhat — dare  I  say  ? — 
priggish  neurosis  which  I  imagine  was  not  unlike 
the  type  of  character  that  dwelt  within  Charlotte 
Corday — extreme  conscientiousness  and  self- 
righteousness.  Such  a  face  might  have  been  the 
face  of  a  Christian  martyr  going  to  the  lions — if 
any  Christian  martyrs  were  ever  thrown  to  the 
lions,  which  some  doubt.  She  went  silently  to 
Paris,  attended  only  by  an  aged  man-servant,  and 
bought  a  long  knife  in  the  Palais  Royal ;  thence 
she  went  to  Marat's  house,  and  tried  to  procure 
admission.  Simonne — the  loyal  Simonne — 
denied  her,  and  she  returned  to  her  inn.  Again 
she  called  at  the  house ;  Marat  heard  her  pretty 
voice,  and  ordered  Simonne  to  admit  her.  It 
was  the  evening  of  July  13,  four  years  all  but 
one  day  since  the  storming  of  the  Bastille,  and 
Marat  sat  in  his  slipper-bath,  pens,  ink,  and  paper 
before  him,  frightful  head  peering  out  of  the 
opening,  hot  compresses  concealing  his  hair. 
Charlotte  told  him  that  there  were  several 
Girondists  hiding  at  Caen  and  plotting  against 
the  Revolution.  "  Their  heads  shall  fall  within 
a  fortnight,"  croaked  Marat.  Then,  he  being 
thus  convicted  out  of  his  own  mouth,  she  drew 
forth  from  her  bosom  her  long  knife,  and  plunged 
it  into  his  chest  between  the  first  and  second  ribs, 
so  that  it  pierced  the  aorta.  Marat  gave  one 

200 


JEAN    PAUL    MARAT 

cry,  and  died  ;  Charlotte  turned  to  face  the  two 
women  who  rushed  in,  but  not  yet  was  she  to 
surrender,  for  she  barricaded  herself  behind  some 
furniture  and  other  movables  till  the  soldiers 
arrived.  To  them  she  gave  herself  up  without 
trouble. 

At  her  trial  she  made  no  denial,  but  proudly 
confessed,  saying, "  Yes,  I  killed  him."  Fouquier- 
Tinville  sneered  at  her  :  "  You  must  be  well 
practised  at  this  sort  of  crime ! "  She  only 
answered  :  "  The  monster ! — he  seems  to  think  I 
am  an  assassin  !  "  She  thought  herself  rather 
the  agent  of  God,  sent  by  Him  to  rid  the  world 
of  a  loathsome  disorder,  as  Brutus  had  rid  Rome 
of  Julius  Caesar. 

In  due  course  she  was  guillotined,  and  an 
extraordinary  thing  happened.  A  young  German 
named  Adam  Lux  had  been  present  at  the  trial, 
standing  behind  the  artist  who  was  painting  the 
very  picture  of  which  I  have  a  reproduction — 
it  is  said  that  Charlotte  showed  no  objection  to 
being  portrayed — and  the  young  man  had  been 
fascinated  by  the  martyresque  air  of  her.  He 
attended  the  execution,  romance  and  grief  weigh- 
ing him  down ;  then  he  ran  home,  and  wrote  a 
furious  onslaught  on  the  leaders  of  the  Mountain 
who  had  executed  her,  saying  that  her  death  had 
"  sanctified  the  guillotine,"  and  that  it  had 

20 1 


POST    MORTEM 

become  "  a  sacred  altar  from  which  every  taint 
had  been  removed  by  her  innocent  blood."  He 
published  this  broadcast,  and  was  naturally  at 
once  arrested.  The  revolutionary  tribunal  sen- 
tenced him  to  death,  and  he  scornfully  refused  to 
accept  a  pardon,  saying  that  he  wished  to  die  on 
the  same  spot  as  Charlotte,  so  they  let  him  have 
his  wish.  The  incident  reminds  one  of  a  picture- 
show,  and  it  is  not  remarkable  that  an  American, 
named  Lyndsay  Orr,  has  written  a  sentimental 
article  about  it. 

The  people  of  Paris  went  mad  after  Marat's 
death ;  his  body,  which  was  said  to  be  decaying 
with  unusual  rapidity,  was  surrounded  by  a  great 
crowd  which  worshipped  it  blasphemously, 
saying,  "  O  Sacred  Heart  of  Marat !  "  This 
worship  of  Marat,  which  showed  how  deeply 
his  teaching  had  bitten  into  the  hearts  of  the 
people,  culminated  in  the  Reign  of  Terror, 
which  began  on  September  5,  1795,  whereby 
France  lost,  according  to  different  estimates, 
between  half  a  million  and  a  million  innocent 
people.  Some  superior  persons  seem  to  think 
that  Marat  had  little  or  no  influence  on  the 
Revolution,  but  to  my  mind  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  the  Terror  was  largely  the  result  of 
his  preaching  of  frantic  violence,  and  it  is  a  lesson 
that  we  ourselves  should  take  to  heart,  seeing  that 

202 


JEAN    PAUL    MARAT 

there  are  persons  in  the  world  to-day  who  would 
emulate  Marat  if  they  possessed  his  enormous 
courage. 

I  need  not  narrate  the  history  of  the  Reign  of 
Terror,  which  was  even  worse  than  the  terror 
which  the  Bolsheviks  established  in  Russia.  Not 
even  Lenin  and  Trotsky  devised  anything  so 
atrocious  as  the  noyades — wholesale  drownings — 
in  the  Loire,  or  the  manages  republicains  on  the 
banks  of  that  river,  and  it  is  difficult  to  believe 
that  the  teaching  of  Marat  had  nothing  to  do 
with  that  frightful  outbreak  of  bestiality,  lust, 
and  murder. 

The  evil  that  men  do  lives  after  them.  There 
was  little  good  to  be  buried  in  Marat's  grave, 
doctor  though  he  was. 


203 


Napoleon  I 

THERE  is  not,  and  may  possibly  never  be,  an 
adequate  biography  of  this  prodigious  man. 
It  is  a  truism  to  say  that  he  has  cast  a  doubt  on 
all  past  glory ;  let  us  hope  that  he  has  rendered 
future  glory  impossible,  for  to  judge  by  the 
late  war  it  seems  impossible  that  any  rival  to  the 
glory  of  Napoleon  can  ever  arise.  In  the  matter 
of  slaying  his  fellow-creatures  he  appears  to  have 
reached  the  summit  of  human  achievement ; 
possibly  also  in  all  matters  of  organization  and 
administration.  Material  things  hardly  seemed 
to  affect  him  ;  bestriding  the  world  like  a  colossus 
he  has  given  us  a  sublime  instance  of  Intellect  that 
for  many  years  ruthlessly  overmastered  Circum- 
stance. That  Intellect  was  finally  itself  mastered 
by  disease,  leaving  behind  it  a  record  which  is  of 
supreme  interest  to  mankind ;  a  record  which, 
alas,  is  so  disfigured  by  prejudice  and  falsehood 
that  it  is  difficult  to  distinguish  between  what  is 
true  and  what  is  untrue.  Napoleon  himself 
possessed  so  extraordinary  a  personality  that 
nearly  every  one  whom  he  met  became  a  fervent 
adorer.  With  regard  to  him  we  can  find  no 
half-tones,  no  detached  reporters ;  therefore  it 

204 


NAPOLEON    I 

is  enormously  difficult  to  find  even  the  basis  for 
a  biography.  Fortunately,  that  is  not  now  our 
province.  It  is  merely  necessary  that  we  shall 
attempt  to  make  a  consistent  story  of  the  reports 
of  illness  which  perplex  us  in  regard  to  his  life 
and  death ;  it  adds  interest  to  the  quest  when 
we  are  told  that  sometimes  disease  lent  its  aid  to 
Fate  in  swaying  the  destinies  of  battles.  And  yet, 
even  after  Napoleon  has  lived,  there  are  some 
historians  who  deny  the  influence  of  a  "  great 
man "  upon  history,  and  would  attribute  to 
"  tendencies  "  and  "  ideas  "  events  which  ordin- 
ary people  would  attribute  to  individual  genius. 
Some  persons  think  that  Napoleon  was  merely 
an  episode — that  he  had  no  real  influence  upon 
history ;  it  is  the  custom  to  point  to  his  career 
as  an  exemplification  of  the  thesis  that  war  has 
played  very  little  real  part  in  the  moulding  of  the 
course  of  the  world.  Into  all  this  we  need  not 
now  enter,  beyond  saying  that  he  was  the  "  child 
of  the  French  Revolution  "  who  killed  his  own 
spiritual  father ;  the  reaction  from  Napoleon 
was  Metternich,  Castlereagh,  and  the  Holy 
Alliance  ;  the  reaction  from  these  forces  of  repres- 
sion was  the  late  war.  So  it  is  difficult  to  agree 
that  Napoleon  was  only  an  "  episode."  We 
have  merely  to  remark  that  he  was  the  most 
interesting  of  all  men,  and,  so  far  as  we  can  tell, 

205 


POST    MORTEM 

will  probably  remain  so.  As  Fielding  long  ago 
pointed  out  in  Jonathan  Wild,  a  man's "  greatness " 
appears  to  depend  on  his  homicidal  capacity. 
To  make  yourself  a  hero  all  you  have  to  do  is 
to  slaughter  as  many  of  your  fellow-creatures 
as  God  will  permit.  How  poor  the  figures  of 
Woodrow  Wilson  or  Judge  Hughes  seem  beside 
the  grey-coated  "  little  corporal  "  !  Though  it  is 
quite  probable  that  either  of  these  most  estimable 
American  peacemakers  have  done  more  good  for 
the  human  race  than  was  achieved  by  any 
warrior  !  So  sinful  is  man  that  we  throw  our 
hats  in  the  air  and  whoop  for  Napoleon  the 
slaughterer,  rather  than  for  Woodrow  Wilson, 
who  was  "  too  proud  to  fight." 

When  Napoleon  was  sent  to  St.  Helena  he  was 
followed  by  a  very  few  faithful  friends,  who  seem 
to  have  spent  their  time  in  hating  one  another 
rather  than  in  comforting  their  fallen  idol.  It 
is  difficult  to  get  at  the  truth  of  these  last  few 
years  because,  though  most  of  the  eye-witnesses 
have  published  their  memoirs,  each  man  seems  to 
have  been  more  concerned  to  assure  the  world  of 
the  greatness  of  his  own  sacrifice  than  to  record 
the  exact  facts.  Therefore,  though  Napoleon 
urged  them  to  keep  diaries,  and  thereby  make 
great  sums  of  money  through  their  imprison- 
ment, yet  these  diaries  generally  seem  to  have 

206 


NAPOLEON    I 

aimed  rather  at  attacking  the  other  faithful  ones 
than  at  telling  us  exactly  what  happened. 

The  post-mortem  examination  of  Napoleon's 
body  was  performed  by  Francesco  Antommarchi, 
a  young  Corsican  physician,  anatomist,  and 
pathologist,  who  was  sent  to  St.  Helena  about 
eighteen  months  before  Napoleon's  death  in  the 
hope  that  he,  being  a  Corsican,  would  be  able 
to  win  the  Emperor's  confidence  and  cure  the 
illness  of  which  he  was  already  complaining. 
Unfortunately,  Antommarchi  was  a  very  young 
man,  and  Napoleon  suspected  both  his  medical 
skill  and  the  reason  of  his  presence.  Napoleon 
used  to  suffer  from  severe  pains  in  his  stomach ; 
he  would  clasp  himself,  and  groan,  "  O,  mon 
pylore  !  "  By  that  time  he  was  suffering  from 
cancer  of  the  stomach,  and  Antommarchi  did 
not  suspect  it.  When  Napoleon  groaned  and 
writhed  in  agony  it  is  said  that  Antommarchi 
merely  laughed,  and  prescribed  him  tartar  emetic 
in  lemonade.  Napoleon  was  violently  sick,  and 
thought  himself  poisoned ;  he  swore  he  would 
never  again  taste  any  of  Antommarchi's  medicine. 
Once  again  Antommarchi  attempted  to  give  him 
tartar  emetic  in  lemonade ;  it  was  not  in  vain 
that  Napoleon  had  won  a  reputation  for  being  a 
great  strategist,  for,  when  Antommarchi's  back 
was  turned  he  handed  the  draught  to  the  unsus- 

207 


POST    MORTEM 

pecting  Montholon.  In  ten  minutes  that  hero 
reacted  in  the  usual  manner,  and  extremely 
violently.  Napoleon  was  horrified  and  outraged 
in  his  feelings ;  quite  naturally  he  accused 
Antommarchi  of  trying  to  poison  him,  called  him 
"  assassin,"  and  refused  to  see  him  again.  Another 
fault  that  Napoleon  found  with  the  unhappy 
young  man  was  that  whenever  he  wanted  medical 
attendance  Antommarchi  was  not  to  be  found, 
but  had  to  be  ferreted  out  from  Jamestown, 
three  and  a  half  miles  away ;  so  altogether 
Antommarchi's  attendance  could  not  be  called 
a  success.  Napoleon  in  his  wrath  was  "  terrible 
as  an  army  with  banners."  Even  at  St.  Helena, 
where  the  resources  of  the  whole  world  had  been 
expended  in  the  effort  to  cage  him  helpless,  it 
must  have  been  no  joke  to  stand  up  before  those 
awful  eyes,  that  scorching  tongue ;  and  it  is 
no  wonder  that  Antommarchi  preferred  to  spend 
the  last  few  weeks  idling  about  Jamestown  rather 
than  forcing  unwelcome  attention  upon  his 
terrible  patient. 

Worst  of  all,  Antommarchi  at  first  persuaded 
himself  that  Napoleon's  last  illness  was  not 
serious.  When  Napoleon  cried  in  his  agony, 
"  O,  mon  pylore  !  "  and  complained  of  a  pain  that 
shot  through  him  like  a  knife,  Antommarchi 
merely  laughed  and  turned  to  his  antimony  with 

208 


NAPOLEON    I 

catastrophic  results.  It  shakes  our  faith  in 
Antommarchi's  professional  skill  to  read  that 
until  the  very  last  moment  he  would  not  believe 
that  there  was  much  the  matter.  The  veriest 
blockhead — one  would  imagine — must  have  seen 
that  the  Emperor  was  seriously  ill.  Many  a 
case  of  cancer  of  the  stomach  has  been  mistaken 
for  simple  dyspepsia  in  its  early  stages,  but  there 
comes  a  time  when  the  true  nature  of  the  disease 
forces  itself  upon  even  the  most  casual  observer. 
The  rapid  wasting,  the  cachexia,  the  vomiting, 
the  pain,  all  impress  themselves  upon  both 
patient  and  friends,  and  it  is  difficult  to  avoid 
the  conclusion  that  Antommarchi  must  have 
been  both  careless  and  negligent.  When  the 
inevitable  happened,  and  Napoleon  died,  it  was 
Antommarchi  who  performed  the  autopsy,  and 
found  a  condition  which  it  is  charitable  to  sup- 
pose may  have  masked  the  last  symptoms  and 
may  have  explained,  if  it  did  not  excuse,  the 
young  anatomist's  mistaken  confidence. 

We  conclude  our  brief  sketch  of  the  unhappy 
Antommarchi  by  saying  that  when  he  returned 
to  Europe  he  published  the  least  accurate  and 
most  disingenuous  of  all  accounts  of  Napoleon's 
last  days.  His  object  seems  to  have  been  rather 
to  conceal  his  own  shortcomings  than  to  tell 
the  truth.  This  book  sets  the  seal  on  his  character, 

209  o 


POST    MORTEM 

and  casts  doubt  on  all  else  that  comes  from  his 
pen.  He  may  have  been,  as  the  Lancet  says, 
a  "  trained  and  competent  pathologist  "  ;  he 
was  certainly  a  most  unfortunate  young  man. 

The  post-mortem  was  performed  in  the  pre- 
sence of  several  British  military  surgeons,  who 
appear  to  have  been  true  sons  of  John  Bull,  with 
all  the  prejudice,  ignorance,  and  cocksureness 
that  in  the  eyes  of  other  nations  distinguish  us 
so  splendidly.  Though  truthfulness  was  not  a 
strong  point  with  Antommarchi,  he  seems  to 
have  known  his  pathology,  and  has  left  us  an 
exceedingly  good  and  well-written  report  of  what 
he  found.  Strange  to  relate,  the  body  was 
found  to  be  still  covered  thickly  with  a  super- 
ficial layer  of  fat,  and  the  heart  and  omenta  were 
also  adipose.  This  would  seem  impossible  in 
the  body  of  a  man  who  had  just  died  from  cancer 
of  the  stomach,  but  is  corroborated  by  a  report 
from  a  Dr.  Henry,  who  was  also  present,  and  is 
not  unknown.  I  remember  the  case  of  an  old 
woman  who,  though  hardly  at  all  wasted,  was 
found  at  the  autopsy  to  have  an  extensive  cancer- 
ous growth  of  the  pylorus ;  the  explanation  was 
that  the  disease  had  been  so  acute  that  it  slew 
her  before  there  had  been  time  to  produce  much 
wasting.  At  one  point  Napoleon's  cancerous 
ulcer  had  perforated  the  stomach,  and  the  orifice 

210 


NAPOLEON    I 

had  been  sealed  by  adhesions.  Dr.  Henry 
proudly  states  that  he  himself  was  able  to  thrust 
his  finger  through  it.  The  liver  was  large  but 
not  diseased ;  the  spleen  was  large  and  "  full  of 
blood  " — probably  Antommarchi  meant  engorged. 
The  intestine  was  covered  by  small  bright-red 
patches,  evidently  showing  inflammation  of  lym- 
phatic tissue  such  as  frequently  occurs  in  general 
infections  of  the  body.  The  bladder  contained 
gravel  and  several  definite  calculi.  There  was 
hardly  any  secondary  cancerous  development, 
except  for  a  few  enlarged  glands.  Antommarchi 
and  the  French  generally  had  diagnosed  before 
death  that  he  was  suffering  from  some  sort  of 
hepatitis  endemic  to  St.  Helena,  and  the  cancer 
was  a  great  surprise  to  them — not  that  it  would 
have  mattered  much  from  the  point  of  view  of 
treatment. 

Napoleon's  hands  and  feet  were  extremely 
small ;  his  skin  was  white  and  delicate ;  his  body 
had  feminine  characteristics,  such  as  wide  hips 
and  narrow  shoulders ;  his  reproductive  organs 
were  small  and  apparently  atrophied.  He  is  said 
to  have  been  impotent  for  some  time  before 
he  died.  There  was  little  hair  on  the  body,  and 
the  hair  of  the  head  was  fine,  silky,  and  sparse. 
Twenty  years  later  his  body  was  exhumed  and 
taken  to  France,  and  Dr.  Guillard,  who  was 

211 


POST    MORTEM 

permitted  to  make  a  brief  examination,  stated 
that  the  beard  and  nails  appeared  to  have  grown 
since  death  ;  there  was  very  little  sign  of  decom- 
position ;  men  who  had  known  him  in  life  recog- 
nized his  face  immediately  it  was  uncovered. 

Leonard  Guthrie  points  out  that  some  of  these 
signs  seem  to  indicate  a  condition  of  hypo- 
pituitarism — the  opposite  to  the  condition  of 
hyper-pituitarism  which  causes  "  giantism."  Far- 
fetched as  this  theory  may  appear,  yet  it  is 
possible  that  there  may  be  something  in  it. 

The  autopsy  showed  beyond  cavil  that  the 
cause  of  death  was  cancer  of  the  stomach,  and 
it  is  difficult  to  see  what  more  Antommarchi 
could  have  done  in  the  way  of  treatment  than 
he  did,  although  certainly  an  irritant  poison  like 
tartar  emetic  would  not  have  been  good  for  a 
man  with  cancer  of  the  stomach,  even  if  it  did 
not  actually  shorten  his  life.  But  Napoleon  was 
not  a  good  patient.  He  had  seen  too  much  of 
army  surgery  to  have  a  great  respect  for  our 
profession ;  indeed,  it  is  probable  that  he  had 
no  respect  for  anybody  but  the  Emperor  Napo- 
leon. He,  at  least,  knew  his  business.  He  could 
mano3uvre  a  great  army  in  the  field  and  win 
battles — and  lose  them  too.  But  even  a  lost 
Napoleonic  battle — there  were  not  many — was 
better  managed  than  a  victory  of  any  other  man  ; 

212 


NAPOLEON    I 

whereas  when  you  were  dealing  with  these  doctor 
fellows  you  could  never  tell  whether  their 
results  were  caused  by  their  treatment  or  by 
the  intervention  of  whatever  gods  there  be. 
Decidedly  Antommarchi  was  the  last  man  in  the 
world  to  be  sent  to  treat  the  fallen,  but  still 
imperious,  warrior. 

The  symptoms  of  impending  death  seem  to 
have  been  masked  by  a  continued  fever,  and 
probably  Antommarchi  was  not  really  much  to 
blame.  This  idea  is  to  some  extent  borne  out 
by  a  couple  of  specimens  in  the  Museum  of  the 
Royal  College  of  Surgeons,  which  are  said  to  have 
belonged  to  the  body  of  Napoleon.  The  story 
is  that  they  were  surreptitiously  removed  by 
Antommarchi,  and  handed  by  him  to  Barry 
O'Meara,  who  in  his  turn  gave  them  to  Sir 
Astley  Cooper.  That  baronet  handed  them  to 
the  museum,  where  they  are  now  preserved  as 
of  doubtful  origin.  But  their  genuineness  de- 
pends upon  whether  we  can  believe  that  Antom- 
marchi would  or  could  have  removed  them,  and 
whether  O'Meara  was  telling  the  truth  to  Sir 
Astley  Cooper.  It  is  doubtful  which  of  the  two 
first-mentioned  men  is  the  less  credible,  and 
Cooper  could  not  have  known  how  untruthful 
O'Meara  was  to  show  himself,  or  he  would  prob- 
ably not  have  thought  for  one  moment  that  the 
213 


POST    MORTEM 

specimens  were  genuine.  O'Meara  was  a  conten- 
tious Irishman  who,  like  most  other  people,  had 
fallen  under  the  sway  of  Napoleon's  personal 
charm.  He  published  a  book  in  which  he  libelled 
Sir  Hudson  Lowe,  whose  hard  fate  it  was  to  be 
Napoleon's  jailer  at  St.  Helena — that  isle  of 
unrest.  For  some  reason  Lowe  never  took 
action  against  his  traducer  until  it  was  too  late, 
so  that  his  own  character,  like  most  things  con- 
nected with  Napoleon,  still  remains  a  bone  of 
contention.  But  O'Meara  had  definitely  put 
himself  on  the  side  of  the  French  against  the 
English,  and  it  was  the  object  of  the  French  to 
show  that  their  demigod  had  died  of  some  illness 
endemic  to  that  devil's  island,  aggravated  by  the 
barbarous  ill-treatment  of  the  brutal  British.  We 
on  our  side  contended  that  St.  Helena  was  a 
sort  of  earthly  paradise,  where  one  should  live 
for  ever.  The  fragments  are  from  somebody's 
ileum,  and  show  little  raised  patches  of  inflamed 
lymphoid  tissue ;  Sir  William  Leishman  con- 
siders the  post-mortem  findings,  apart  from  the 
cancer,  those  of  some  long-continued  fever,  such 
as  Mediterranean  fever. 

Mediterranean  or  Malta  fever  is  a  curious 
specific  fever  due  to  the  Micrococcus  melitensis, 
which  shows  itself  by  recurrent  bouts  of  pyrexia, 
accompanied  by  constipation,  chronic  anaemia, 

214 


NAPOLEON    I 

and  wasting.  Between  the  bouts  the  patient 
may  appear  perfectly  well.  There  are  three 
types — the  "  undulatory  "  here  described  ;  the 
"  intermittent,"  in  which  the  attacks  come  on 
almost  daily ;  and  the  "  malignant,"  in  which 
the  patient  only  lives  for  a  week  or  ten  days. 
It  is  now  known  to  be  contracted  by  drinking  the 
infected  milk  of  goats,  and  it  is  almost  confined  to 
the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean  and  certain  parts 
of  India.  It  may  last  for  years,  and  it  is  quite 
possible  that  Napoleon  caught  it  at  Elba,  of  which 
Mediterranean  island  he  was  the  unwilling 
emperor  in  1814.  Thence  he  returned  to 
France,  as  it  was  said,  because  he  had  not  elba- 
room  on  his  little  kingdom.  It  is  certain  that 
for  years  he  had  been  subject  to  feverish  attacks, 
which  army  surgeons  would  now  possibly  classify 
as  "  P.U.O.,"  and  it  is  quite  possible  that  these 
may  in  reality  have  been  manifestations  of  Malta 
fever. 

It  has  been  surmised  by  some  enthusiasts  that 
the  frequency  of  micturition,  followed  by  dysuria, 
to  which  he  was  liable,  may  have  really  been  due 
to  hyper-pituitarism.  Whenever  we  do  not 
understand  a  thing  let  us  blame  a  ductless  gland  ; 
the  pituitary  body  is  well  hidden  beneath  the 
brain,  and  its  action  is  still  not  thoroughly 
understood.  But  surely  we  need  no  further 

215 


POST    MORTEM 

explanation  of  this  miserable  symptom  than  the 
stones  in  the  bladder.  Napoleon  for  many 
years  might  almost  be  said  to  have  lived  on 
horseback,  and  riding  is  the  very  thing  to  cause 
untold  misery  to  a  man  afflicted  with  vesical 
calculus.  Dysuria,  attendant  upon  frequency  of 
micturition,  is  a  most  suggestive  symptom ;  now- 
adays we  are  always  taught  to  consider  the  possi- 
bility of  stone,  and  it  is  rather  surprising  that 
nobody  seems  to  have  suspected  it  during  his 
lifetime.  This  could  be  very  well  accounted  for 
by  remembering  the  general  ignorance  and  incom- 
petence of  army  surgeons  at  the  time,  the  mighty 
position  of  the  patient,  and  his  intolerance  of  the 
medical  profession.  Few  men  would  have  dared 
to  suggest  that  it  would  be  well  for  him  to  submit 
to  the  passage  of  a  sound,  even  if  the  trouble  ever 
became  sufficiently  urgent  to  compel  him  to 
confide  so  private  a  matter  to  one  so  lowly  as  a 
mere  army  doctor.  Yet  he  had  known  and 
admired  Baron  Larrey,  the  great  military  surgeon 
of  the  Napoleonic  Wars ;  one  can  only  surmise 
that  his  calculi  did  not  give  him  much  trouble, 
or  that  they  grew  more  rapidly  in  the  sedentary 
life  which  he  had  led  at  St.  Helena. 

During  the  last  year  or  so  he  took  great  interest 
in  gardening,  and  spent  hours  in  planting  trees, 
digging  the  soil,  and  generally  behaving  somewhat 

216 


NAPOLEON    I 

after  the  manner  of  a  suburban  householder. 
He  was  intensely  bored  by  his  forced  inaction, 
and  used  to  take  refuge  in  chess.  His  staff  at 
first  welcomed  this,  but  unhappily  they  could  find 
nobody  bad  enough  for  the  mighty  strategist  to 
beat ;  yet  nobody  dared  to  give  him  checkmate, 
and  it  was  necessary  to  lose  the  game  foolishly 
rather  than  to  defeat  Napoleon.  It  is  clear  that 
the  qualities  requisite  in  a  good  chess-player  are 
by  no  means  the  same  as  those  necessary  to 
outmanoeuvre  an  army. 

Throughout  his  life  his  pulse-rate  seldom 
exceeded  fifty  per  minute ;  as  he  grew  older  he 
was  subject  to  increasing  lassitude ;  his  extremi- 
ties felt  constantly  chilly,  and  he  used  to  lie  for 
hours  daily  in  hot-water  baths.  Possibly  these 
may  have  been  symptoms  of  hypo-pituitarism ; 
Lord  Rosebery  follows  popular  opinion  in 
attributing  his  laziness  to  the  weakening  effects 
of  hot  baths.  Occasionally  Napoleon  suffered 
from  attacks  of  vomiting,  followed  by  fits  of 
extreme  lethargy.  It  is  quite  possible  that  these 
vomiting  attacks  may  have  been  due  to  the 
gastric  ulcer,  which  must  have  been  growing  for 
years  until,  about  September,  1820,  it  became 
acutely  malignant. 

The  legend  that  Napoleon  suffered  from 
epilepsy  appears,  according  to  Dr.  Ireland,  to 

217 


POST    MORTEM 

rest  upon  a  statement  in  Talleyrand's  memoirs. 
In  September,  1805,  in  Talleyrand's  presence, 
Napoleon  was  seized  after  dinner  with  a  sort  of 
fit,  and  fell  to  the  ground  struggling  convulsively. 
Talleyrand  loosened  his  cravat,  obeying  the 
popular  rule  in  such  circumstances  to  "  give  him 
air."  Remusat,  the  chief  chamberlain,  gave  him 
water,  which  he  drank.  Talleyrand  returned  to 
the  charge,  and  "inundated"  him  with  eau-de- 
Cologne.  The  Emperor  awakened,  and  said 
something — one  would  like  to  know  what  he  said 
when  he  felt  the  inundation  streaming  down  his 
clothes — probably  something  truly  of  the  camp. 
Half  an  hour  later  he  was  on  the  road  that  was 
to  lead  him — to  Austerlitz,  of  all  places !  Clearly 
this  fit,  whatever  it  may  have  been,  was  not 
epilepsy  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  term. 
There  was  no  "  cry,"  no  biting  of  the  tongue, 
no  foaming  at  the  mouth,  and  apparently  no 
unconsciousness.  Moreover,  epilepsy  is  accom- 
panied by  degeneration  of  the  intellect,  and 
nobody  dares  to  say  that  Austerlitz,  Jena,  and 
Wagram — to  say  nothing  of  Aspern  and  Eckmuhl 
— were  won  by  a  degenerate.  Eylau  and  Fried- 
land  were  also  to  come  after  1805,  and  these  seven 
names  still  ring  like  a  trumpet  for  sheer  glory, 
daring,  and  supreme  genius.  I  suppose  there  is 
not  one  of  them — except  perhaps  Aspern — which 

218 


NAPOLEON    I 

would  not  have  made  an  imperishable  name  for 
any  lesser  general.  It  is  impossible  to  believe 
that  they  were  fought  by  an  epileptic.  If 
Napoleon  really  had  epilepsy  it  was  assuredly  not 
the  "  grand  mal  "  which  helps  to  fill  our  asylums. 
It  is  just  possible  that  "  petit  mal "  may  have 
been  in  the  picture.  This  is  a  curious  condition 
which  manifests  itself  by  momentary  loss  of 
consciousness ;  the  patient  may  become  suddenly 
dreamy  and  purposeless,  and  may  perform  curious 
involuntary  actions — even  crimes — while  appar- 
ently conscious.  When  he  recovers  he  knows 
nothing  about  what  he  has  been  doing,  and  may 
even  resume  the  interrupted  action  which  had 
occupied  him  at  the  moment  of  the  seizure. 
Some  such  explanation  may  account  for  Napo- 
leon's fits  of  furious  passion,  that  seem  to  have 
been  followed  by  periods  of  lethargy  and  vomiting. 
It  is  a  sort  of  pleasing  paradox — and  mankind 
dearly  loves  paradox — to  say  that  supremely 
great  men  suffer  from  epilepsy.  It  was  said  of 
Julius  Caesar,  of  St.  Paul,  and  of  Mohammed. 
These  men  are  said  to  have  suffered  from  "  falling 
sickness,"  whatever  that  may  have  been ;  there 
are  plenty  of  conditions  which  may  make  men 
fall  to  the  ground,  without  being  epileptic : 
Meniere's  disease,  for  instance.  It  is  ridiculous 
to  suppose  that  Julius  Caesar  and  Napoleon — 

219 


POST    MORTEM 

by  common  consent  the  two  greatest  of  the  sons 
of  men — should  have  been  subject  to  a  disease 
which  deteriorates  the  intellect. 

It  is  possible  that  some  such  trouble  as  "  -petit 
mal  "  may  have  been  at  the  bottom  of  the  curious 
stories  of  a  certain  listless  torpor  that  appears 
to  have  overcome  Napoleon  at  critical  moments 
in  his  later  battles.  Something  of  the  kind 
happened  at  Borodino  in  1812,  the  bloodiest  and 
most  frightful  battle  in  history  till  that  time. 
Napoleon  indeed  won,  in  the  sense  that  the 
exhausted  Russians  retreated  to  Moscow,  whither 
he  pursued  them  to  his  ill-fortune ;  but  the 
battle  was  not  fought  with  anything  like  the 
supreme  genius  which  he  displayed  in  his  other 
campaigns.  Similarly,  he  is  said  to  have  been 
thus  stricken  helpless  after  Ligny,  when  he 
defeated  Blucher  in  1815.  He  wasted  precious 
hours  in  lethargy,  which  should  have  been  spent 
in  his  usual  furious  pursuit  of  his  beaten  foe. 
To  this  day  the  French  hold  that,  but  for  Napo- 
leon's inexplicable  idleness  after  Ligny,  there 
would  have  been  no  St.  Helena  ;  and,  with  all 
the  respect  due  to  Wellington  and  his  thin  red 
line,  it  is  by  no  means  certain  that  the  French 
are  wrong.  But  nations  will  continue  to  squabble 
about  Waterloo  till  there  shall  be  no  more  war ; 
and  1814  had  been  the  most  brilliant  of  his 

220 


NAPOLEON    I 

campaigns — probably  of  any  man's    campaigns. 

"  Of  woman  came  the  beginning  of  sin,  and 

through   her    therefore    we    all    die,"    said    the 

ungallant    author   of   Ecclesiasticus ;     and   it   is 

certain  that  Napoleon  was  extremely  susceptible 

to  feminine  charms.    Like  a  Roman  emperor,  he 

had  but  to  cast  a  glance  at  a  woman  and  she  was 

at  his  feet.    Yet  probably  his  life  was  not  very 

much  less  moral  than  was  customary  among  the 

great   at   that   time.     When  we   remember   his 

extraordinary    personal    charm,    it    is    rather    a 

matter  for  wonder  that  women  seem  to  have  had 

so  little  serious  effect  upon  his  life,  and  he  seems 

to  have  taken  comparatively  little  advantage  of 

his  opportunities.     His  first  wife,  Josephine  Beau- 

harnais,  was  a  nighty  Creole  who  pleased  herself 

entirely ;    in  the  vulgar  phrase,  she  "  took  her 

pleasure  where  she  found  it."    To  this  Napoleon 

appears  to  have  been  complaisant,  but  as  she 

could  not  produce  an  heir  to  the  dynasty  which 

he  wished  to  found,  he  divorced  her,  and  married 

the  Austrian  princess  Marie  Louise,  whose  father 

he  had  defeated  and  humiliated  as  few  sovereigns 

have  ever  been  humiliated.     She  deserted  him 

without  a  qualm  when  he  was  sent  to  Elba ; 

when  he  was  finally  imprisoned  at  St.  Helena 

there  was  no  question  of  her  following  him,  even 

if  the   British  Government  had  had  sufficient 

221 


POST    MORTEM 

imagination  to  permit  such  a  thing.  Napoleon, 
who  was  fond  of  her,  wanted  her  to  go  with  him ; 
but  one  could  not  expect  a  Government  containing 
Castlereagh,  Liverpool,  and  Bathurst,  to  show 
any  sympathy  to  the  fallen  foe  who  had  been  a 
nightmare  to  Europe  for  twenty  years.  She 
would  never  consent  to  see  Josephine.  It  is 
said  that  Napoleon's  libido  sexualis  was  violent, 
but  rapidly  quelled.  In  conversation  at  St. 
Helena  he  admitted  having  possessed  seven  mis- 
tresses ;  of  them  he  said  simply,  "  C'est  beaucoup." 
When  he  was  sent  to  St.  Helena  his  mother  wrote 
and  asked  to  be  allowed  to  follow  him  ;  however 
great  a  man's  fall,  his  mother  never  deserts  him, 
and  asylum  doctors  find  that  long  after  the  wife 
or  sisters  forget  some  demented  and  bestial 
creature,  his  mother  loyally  continues  her  visits 
till  the  grave  closes  over  one  or  the  other.  But 
more  remarkable  is  the  fact  that  Pauline  Bona- 
parte, who  was  always  looked  upon  as  a  shameless 
hussy,  would  have  followed  him  to  St.  Helena, 
only  that  she  was  ill  in  bed  at  the  time.  She  was 
the  beautiful  sister  who  sat  to  Canova  for  the 
statue  of  Venus  in  the  Villa  Borghese.  It  was 
then  thought  most  shocking  for  a  lady  of  high 
degree  to  be  sculptured  as  a  nude  Venus — perhaps 
it  is  now  ;  I  say,  perhaps.  There  are  few  ladies 
of  high  degree  so  beautiful  as  Princess  Pauline, 

222 


NAPOLEON    I 

as  Canova  shows  her.  A  friend  said  to  her  about 
the  statue,  "  Were  you  not  uncomfortable, 
princess,  sitting  there  without  any  clothes  on  ?  " 
"  Uncomfortable,"  said  Princess  Pauline,  "  why 
should  I  be  uncomfortable  ?  There  was  a  stove 
in  the  room  !  "  There  are  many  other  still  less 
creditable  stories  told  about  her.  It  was  poor 
beautiful  Pauline  who  lost  her  husband  of  yellow 
fever,  herself  recovering  of  an  attack  at  the  same 
time.  She  cut  off  her  hair  and  buried  it  in  his 
coffin.  This  was  thought  a  wonderful  instance 
of  wifely  devotion,  until  the  cynical  Emperor 
remarked  :  "  Quite  so  ;  quite  so  ;  of  course,  she 
knows  it  will  grow  again  better  than  ever  for 
cutting  it  off,  and  that  it  would  have  fallen  off 
anyhow  after  the  fever."  Yet  when  he  was  sent 
to  Elba,  this  frivolous  sister  followed  him,  and 
she  sold  every  jewel  she  possessed  to  make  life 
comfortable  for  him  at  St.  Helena.  She  was  a 
very  human  and  beautiful  woman,  this  Pauline ; 
she  detested  Marie  Louise,  and  once  in  1810  at  a 
grand  fete  she  saucily  poked  out  her  tongue  at 
the  young  Empress  in  full  view  of  all  the  nobles. 
Unhappily  Napoleon  saw  her,  and  cast  upon  her 
a  dreadful  look  ;  Pauline  picked  up  her  skirts  and 
ran  headlong  from  the  room.  When  she  heard  of 
his  death  she  wept  bitterly  ;  she  died  four  years 
afterwards  of  cancer.  Her  last  action  was  to 

223 


POST    MORTEM 

call  for  a  mirror,  looking  into  which  she  died, 
saying,  "  I  am  still  beautiful ;  I  am  not  afraid  to 
die." 

In  attempting  to  judge  Marie  Louise  it  must 
be  remembered  that  there  is  a  horrid  story  told 
of  Napoleon's  first  meeting  with  her  in  France 
after  the  civil  marriage  had  been  performed  by 
proxy  in  Vienna.  It  is  said  that  the  fury  of  his 
lust  did  her  physical  injury,  and  that  that  is  the 
true  reason  why  she  never  forgave  him  and  deserted 
him  at  the  first  opportunity.  She  bore  him  a 
son,  of  whom  he  was  passionately  fond,  but  after 
his  downfall  the  son — the  poor  little  King  of 
Rome  immortalized  by  Rostand  in  "  VAiglon  " — 
fell  into  the  hands  of  Metternich,  the  Austrian, 
who  is  said  to  have  deliberately  contrived  to  have 
him  taught  improper  practices,  lest  he  should 
grow  up  to  be  as  terrible  a  menace  to  the  world 
as  his  father.  But  all  these  are  rumours,  and 
show  how  difficult  it  is  to  ascertain  the  truth  of 
anything  connected  with  Napoleon. 

When  Napoleon  fell  to  the  dust  after  Leipzig, 
Marie  Louise  became  too  friendly  with  Count  von 
Neipperg,  whom  she  morganatically  married  after 
Napoleon's  death.  Although  he  heard  of  her 
infidelity,  he  forgave  her,  and  mentioned  her 
affectionately  in  his  will,  thereby  showing,  to 
borrow  a  famous  phrase  of  Gibbon  about  Beli- 

224 


NAPOLEON    I 

sarius,  "  Either  less  or  more  than  the  character 
of  a  man." 

For  nine  days  before  he  died  he  lay  unconscious 
and  babbled  in  delirium.  On  the  morning  of 
May  5,  1821,  Montholon  thought  he  heard  the 
words  "  France  .  .  .  armee  .  .  .  tete  d>  armee" 
The  dying  Emperor  thrust  Montholon  from  his 
side,  struggled  out  of  bed,  and  staggered  towards 
the  window.  Montholon  overpowered  him  and 
put  him  back  to  bed,  where  he  lay  silent  and 
motionless  till  he  died  the  same  evening.  The 
man  who  had  fought  about  sixty  pitched  battles, 
all  of  which  he  had  won,  I  believe,  but  two — who 
had  caused  the  deaths  of  three  millions  of  his  own 
men  and  untold  millions  of  his  enemies — died  as 
peacefully  in  his  bed  as  any  humble  labourer. 
What  dim  memories  passed  through  his  clouded 
brain  as  he  tried  to  say  "  head  of  the  army  "  ? 
A  great  tropical  storm  was  threatening  Longwood. 
Did  he  recall  the  famous  "  sun  of  Austerlitz  " 
beneath  whose  rays  the  grande  armee  had  elevated 
its  idolized  head  to  the  highest  pitch  of  earthly 
glory  ?  Who  can  follow  the  queer  paths  taken 
by  associated  ideas  in  the  human  brain  ? 


225 


Benvenuto   Cellini 

NO  one  can  read  Benvenuto's  extraordinary 
autobiography  without  being  reminded 
of  the  even  more  extraordinary  diary  of  Mr. 
Pepys.  But  there  is  one  very  great  difference. 
Cellini  dictated  his  memoirs  to  a  little  boy  for 
the  world  at  large,  and  did  not  profess  to  tell  the 
whole  truth — rather  those  things  which  came 
into  his  mind  readily  in  his  old  age ;  but  Pepys 
wrote  for  himself  in  secret  cypher  in  his  own 
study,  and  the  reason  of  his  writing  has  never 
yet  been  guessed.  Why  did  he  set  down  all  his 
most  private  affairs  ?  And  when  they  became 
too  disgraceful  even  for  Mr.  Pepys's  conscience, 
why  did  he  set  them  down  in  a  mongrel  mixture 
of  French  and  Spanish  ?  Can  we  find  a  hint 
in  the  fact  that  he  left  a  key  to  the  cypher 
behind  him  ?  Did  he  really  wish  his  Diary  to 
remain  unreadable  for  ever  ?  Was  it  really 
a  quaint  and  beastly  vanity  that  moved 
him  ? 

But  Cellini  wrote  'per  medium  of  a  little  boy 
amanuensis  while  he  himself  worked,  and  possibly 
he  may  have  deliberately  omitted  some  facts 
too  shameful  for  the  ears  of  that  -puer  ingenuus ; 

226 


BENVENUTO    CELLINI 

though  I  have  my  doubts  about  this  theory. 
He  frankly  depicts  himself  as  a  cynical  and  forth- 
right fellow  always  ready  to  brawl ;  untroubled 
by  conventional  ideas  either  of  art  or  of  morality  ; 
ready  to  call  a  spade  a  spade  or  any  number  of 
adjectived  shovels  that  came  instantly  to  his 
mind.  If  it  be  great  writing  to  express  one's 
meaning  tersely,  directly,  and  positively,  then 
Cellini's  is  the  greatest  of  writing,  though  we 
have  to  be  thankful  that  it  is  in  a  foreign  language. 
The  best  translation  is  probably  that  of  John 
Addington  Symonds — a  cheaper  and  excellent 
edition  is  published  in  the  Everyman  Library — 
and  nobody  who  wishes  to  write  precisely  as  he 
thinks  can  afford  to  go  without  studying  this 
remarkable  book.  And  having  studied  it  he 
will  probably  come  to  the  conclusion  that  there 
are  other  things  in  writing  than  merely  to  express 
oneself  directly.  There  is  such  a  thing  as 
beauty  of  thought  as  well  as  beauty  of  expres- 
sion ;  and  probably  he  will  end  by  wondering 
what  is  that  thing  which  we  call  beauty  ? 
Is  it  only  Truth,  as  even  such  a  master  of 
Beauty  as  Keats  seems  to  have  thought  ?  Why 
is  one  line  of  the  Grecian  Urn  more  beautiful 
than  all  the  blood  and  thunder  of  Benve- 
nuto  ? 

Cellini  says  that  he  caught  the  "  French  evil  " 
227 


POST    MORTEM 

— i.e.  syphilis — when  he  was  a  young  man ;  he 
certainly  did  his  best  to  catch  it.  His  symptoms 
were  abnormal,  and  the  doctors  assured  him 
that  his  disease  was  not  the  "  French  evil." 
However,  he  knew  better,  and  assumed  a  treat- 
ment of  his  own,  consisting  of  lignum  vitcs  and 
a  holiday  shooting  in  the  marshes.  Here  he 
probably  caught  malaria,  of  which  he  cured  him- 
self with  guaiacum.  We  know  now  that,  alas, 
syphilis  cannot  be  cured  by  such  means ;  and 
the  fact  that  he  lived  to  old  age  seems  to  show 
that  there  was  something  wrong  with  his  diag- 
nosis. I  have  known  plenty  of  syphilitics  who 
have  reached  extreme  old  age,  but  they  had  not 
been  cured  by  lignum  vitez  and  a  holiday  ;  it  was 
mercury  that  had  cured  them,  taken  early  and 
often,  over  long  periods.  I  very  much  doubt 
whether  he  ever  had  the  "  French  evil "  at 
all. 

But  apart  from  this  and  from  his  amazing 
revelations  of  quarrelling  and  loose  living,  the 
autobiography  is  worth  reading  for  its  remarkable 
description  of  the  casting  of  his  great  statue  of 
Perseus,  which  now  stands  in  the  Loggia  dei 
Lanzi  at  Florence  hard  by  the  Uffizi.  By  the 
time  the  book  had  reached  so  far  the  little  boy 
had  long  wearied  of  the  job  of  secretary,  and 
die  old  man  had  buckled  down  to  the  labour 

228 


[Photo,  Brogi. 

PERSEUS  AND  THE  GORGON'S  HEAD. 
Statue  by  Benveuuto  Cellini  (Florence,  Loggia  de'  Lanzi). 


\Face  p.  228. 


of  writing  with  his  own  hand.  I  dare  swear  that 
he  wrote  this  particular  section  at  one  breath, 
so  to  speak ;  the  torrent  of  words,  poured  forth 
in  wild  excitement,  carry  the  reader  away  with 
the  frenzy  of  the  writer  as  Benvenuto  recalls  the 
greatest  hours  of  his  life.  Nowhere  is  such  an 
instance  of  the  terrible  labour  pains  of  a  true 
artist  as  his  offspring  comes  to  birth. 

The  great  statue  does  more  than  represent 
Perseus ;  it  represents  the  wild  and  headlong 
mind  of  Benvenuto  himself.  Perseus  stands 
in  triumph  with  the  Gorgon's  head  in  one  hand 
and  a  sword  in  the  other.  You  can  buy  paper- 
knives  modelled  on  this  sword  for  five  lire  in 
Florence  to-day.  The  gladness  and  youthful 
joy  of  Perseus  are  even  more  striking  than  those 
of  Verrochio's  David  in  the  Bargello  just  near 
at  hand.  Verrochio  has  modelled  a  young 
rascal  of  a  Jew  who  is  clearly  saying :  "  Alone 
I  did  it ;  and  very  nice  too ! "  Never  was 
boyish  triumph  better  portrayed.  But  Ben- 
venuto's  Perseus  is  a  great  young  man  who  has 
done  something  very  worthy,  and  knows  that  it 
is  worthy.  He  has  begun  to  amputate  the  head 
very  carefully  with  a  neat  circular  incision  round 
the  neck  ;  then,  his  rage  or  his  fear  of  the  basilisk 
glance  getting  the  better  of  him,  he  has  set  his 
foot  against  the  Gorgon's  shoulder  and  tugged 

229 


POST    MORTEM 

at  the  head  violently  until  the  grisly  thing  has 
come  away  in  his  hand,  tearing  through  the  soft 
parts  of  the  neck  and  wrenching  the  great  vessels 
from  the  heart. 

As  is  well  known,  opportunities  for  performing 
decapitation  upon  a  Gorgon  are  few  ;  apart  from 
the  rarity  of  the  monster  there  is  always  the  risk 
lest  the  surgeon  may  be  frozen  stiff  in  the  midst 
of  the  operation ;  and  it  becomes  still  more 
difficult  when  it  has  to  be  performed  in  the 
Fourth  Dimension  through  a  looking-glass.  We 
have  the  authority  of  The  Mikado  that  self- 
decapitation  is  a  difficult,  not  to  say  painful, 
operation,  and  Benvenuto  could  not  have  prac- 
tised his  method  before  a  shaving-mirror,  because 
he  had  a  bushy  beard,  though  some  of  us  have 
inadvertently  tried  in  our  extreme  youth  before 
we  have  learned  the  advisability  of  using  safety 
razors.  Anyhow,  Benvenuto's  Perseus  is  a  very 
realistic,  violent,  and  wonderful  piece  of  sculpture; 
if  he  had  done  nothing  else  he  would  have  still 
been  one  of  the  greatest  artists  in  the  world. 
My  own  misfortune  was  in  going  to  Florence 
before  I  had  seriously  read  his  autobiography ; 
I  wish  to  warn  others  lest  that  misfortune  should 
befall  them.  Read  Cellini's  autobiography — 
then,  go  to  Florence  !  You  will  see  how  the 
author  of  the  autobiography  was  the  only  man 

230 


BENVENUTO    CELLINI 

who  could  possibly  have  done  the  Perseus ;  how, 
in  modelling  the  old  pre-hellenic  demi-god,  he 
was  really  modelling  his  own  subconscious 
mind. 


231 


Death 

T  T  THEN  William  Dunbar  sang,  "  Timor  mortis 
V  V  perturbat  me,"  he  but  expressed  the 
most  universal  of  human — perhaps  of  animate — 
feelings.  It  is  no  shame  to  fear  death ;  the 
fear  appears  to  be  a  necessary  condition  of  our 
existence.  The  shame  begins  when  we  allow 
that  fear  to  influence  us  in  the  performance 
of  our  duty.  But  why  should  we  fear  death 
at  all  ?  It  is  hardly  an  explanation  to  say  that 
the  fear  of  death  is  implanted  in  living  things 
lest  the  individual  should  be  too  easily  slain 
and  thereby  the  species  become  extinct.  Who 
implanted  it  ?  And  why  is  it  so  necessary 
that  that  individual  should  survive  ?  Why  is 
it  necessary  that  the  species  should  survive  ? 
And  so  on — to  name  only  a  few  of  the  un- 
answerable questions  that  crowd  upon  us  when- 
ever we  sit  down  to  muse  upon  that  problem 
which  every  living  thing  must  some  time  have 
a  chance  of  solving.  The  question  of  death 
is  inextricably  bound  up  with  the  interpretation 
of  innumerable  abstract  nouns,  such  as  truth, 
justice,  good,  evil,  and  many  more,  which  all 
religions  make  some  effort  to  interpret.  Philoso- 

232 


DEATH 

phy  attempts  it  by  the  light  of  man's  reason; 
religion  by  a  light  from  some  extra-human 
source;  but  all  alike  represent  the  struggles  of 
earnest  men  to  solve  the  insoluble. 

Nor  is  it  possible  to  obtain  help  from  the  great 
men  of  the  past,  because  not  one  of  them  knew 
any  more  about  death  than  you  do  yourself. 
Socrates,  in  Plato's  Pb&do,  Sir  Thomas  Browne 
in  the  Religio  Medici  and  the  Hydriotapbia, 
Shakespeare  in  Hamlet  and  Macbeth  and  many 
other  plays,  St.  Paul  in  various  epistles,  all  tried 
to  console  us  for  the  fact  that  we  must  die ; 
the  revolt  against  that  inevitable  end  of  beauty 
and  ugliness,  charm  and  horror,  love  and  hate, 
is  the  most  persistent  note  in  literature ;  and 
there  are  few  men  who  go  through  life  without 
permitting  themselves  to  wonder,  "  What  is 
going  to  happen  to  me  ?  Why  should  I  have  to 
die  ?  What  will  my  wife  and  children  do  after 
me  ?  How  is  it  possible  that  the  world  will  go 
on,  and  apparently  go  on  just  the  same  as  now, 
for  ages  after  an  important  thing  like  me  is 
shovelled  away  into  a  hole  in  the  ground  ?  "  I 
suppose  you  have  dreamed  with  a  start  of  horror  a 
dream  in  which  you  revisit  the  world,  and  looking 
for  your  own  house  and  children,  find  them 
going  along  happily  and  apparently  prosperous, 
the  milkman  coming  as  usual,  a  woman  in  the 

233 


POST    MORTEM 

form  of  your  wife  ordering  meals  and  supervising 
household  affairs,  the  tax-gatherer  calling — let 
us  hope  a  little  less  often  than  when  you  were 
alive — the  trams  running  and  the  ferry-boats 
packed  as  usual,  and  the  sun  shining,  the  rain 
falling  sometimes,  Members  of  Parliament  bawl- 
ing foolishly  over  nothing — all  these  things 
happening  as  usual ;  but  you  look  around  to  see 
anybody  resembling  that  beautiful  and  god-like 
creature  whom  you  remember  as  yourself,  and 
wheresoever  you  look  he  is  not  there.  Where 
is  he  ?  How  can  the  world  possibly  go  on 
without  him  ?  Is  it  really  going  on,  or  is  it 
nothing  more  than  an  incredible  dream  ?  And 
why  are  you  so  shocked  and  horror-stricken  by 
this  dream  ?  You  could  hardly  be  more  shocked 
if  you  saw  you  wife  toiling  in  a  garret  for  the 
minimum  wage,  or  your  children  running  about 
barefoot  selling  newspapers.  The  shocking  fact 
is  not  that  you  have  left  them  penniless,  but  that 
you  have  had  to  leave  them  at  all.  In  the  morn- 
ing joy  cometh  as  usual,  and  you  go  cheerfully 
about  your  work,  which  simply  consists  of  post- 
poning the  day  of  somebody  else's  death  as  long 
as  you  can.  For  a  little  time  perhaps  you  will 
take  particular  note  of  the  facts  which  accompany 
the  act  of  death ;  then  you  will  resign  yourself 
to  the  inevitable,  and  continue  doggedly  to  wage 

234 


DEATH 

an  endless  battle  in  which  you  must  inevitably 
lose,  assured  of  nothing  but  that  some  day  you 
too  will  lie  pallid,  your  jaw  dropped,  your  chest 
not  moving,  your  face  horribly  inert ;  and  that 
somebody  will  come  and  wash  your  body  and 
tie  up  your  jaw  and  put  pennies  on  your  eyes 
and  wrap  you  in  cerements  and  lift  you  into 
a  long  box  ;  and  that  large  men  will  put  the  box 
on  their  shoulders  and  lump  you  into  a  big 
vehicle  with  black  horses,  and  another  man  will 
ironically  shout  Paul's  words,  "O  death,  where 
is  thy  sting  ?  O  grave,  where  is  thy  victory  ?  " 
And  in  the  club  some  man  will  take  your  seat 
at  lunch,  and  the  others  will  say  you  were  a 
decent  sort  of  fellow  and  will  not  joke  loudly 
for  a  whole  meal-time.  And  ten  years  hence 
who  will  remember  you  ?  Your  wife  and  child- 
ren, of  course — if  they  too  have  not  also  been 
carried  away  in  long  boxes  ;  a  few  men  who 
look  upon  you  with  a  kindly  patronage  as  one 
who  has  fallen  in  the  fight  and  cannot  compete 
with  them  now  ;  but  otherwise  ?  Your  hospital 
appointments  have  long  been  filled  up  by  men 
who  cannot,  you  think,  do  your  work  half  so  well 
as  you  used  to  do  it ;  your  car  is  long  ago  turned 
into  scrap-iron  ;  your  little  dog,  which  used  to 
yelp  so  joyously  when  you  got  home  tired  at 
night  and  kicked  him  out  of  the  way,  is  long  dead 

235 


POST    MORTEM 

and  buried  under  your  favourite  rose-bush ; 
your  library,  which  was  your  joy  for  so  many 
years,  has  long  been  sold  at  about  one-tenth  of 
what  it  cost  you  ;  and,  except  for  the  woman  who 
was  foolish  enough  to  love  and  marry  you  and 
the  children  whom  the  good  creature  brought 
into  the  world  to  carry  on  your  name,  you  are 
as  though  you  had  never  been.  Why  should 
this  be  ?  And  why  are  you  so  terrified  at  the 
prospect  ? 

During  the  past  few  years  we  have  had  ample 
experience  of  death,  for  there  are  few  families 
in  Australia,  and  I  suppose  in  England,  France, 
Germany,  Italy,  Russia,  and  Europe  generally, 
which  have  not  lost  some  beloved  member ; 
yet  we  are  no  nearer  solving  the  mystery  than  we 
were  before.  We  know  no  more  about  it  than 
did  Socrates  or  Homer.  The  only  thing  that 
is  beginning  to  haunt  the  minds  of  many  men 
is  whether  those  gallant  boys  who  died  in  the 
war  were  not  better  off  than  the  men  who  sur- 
vived. At  least  they  know  the  worst,  if  there 
be  anything  to  know ;  and  have  no  longer  to 
fear  cancer  and  paralysis  and  the  other  diseases 
of  later  life.  Many  men  have  written  in  a  con- 
solatory vein  about  old  age,  but  the  consolants 
have  in  no  way  answered  the  dictum  that  if  by 
reason  of  strength  our  years  exceed  threescore 

236 


DEATH 

and  ten,  yet  is  our  strength  but  labour  and  sorrow. 
No  doctor  who  has  seen  an  old  man  with  an 
enlarged  prostate  and  a  septic  kidney  therefrom, 
or  with  cancer  of  the  tongue,  can  refrain  from  wish- 
ing that  that  man  had  died  twenty  years  sooner, 
because  however  bad  the  fate  in  store  for  him 
it  can  hardly  be  worse  than  what  he  suffers  here 
on  earth.  And  possibly  there  are  worse  things 
on  earth  even  than  cancer  of  the  tongue ;  pos- 
sibly cancer  of  the  bladder  is  the  most  atrocious, 
or  right-sided  hemiplegia  with  its  aphasia  and 
deadly  depression  of  soul.  Young  men  do  not 
suffer  from  these  things ;  and  no  one  can  attend 
a  man  so  afflicted  without  wishing  that  the  patient 
had  died  happily  by  a  bullet  in  Gallipoli  before 
his  time  came  so  to  suffer.  Yet  as  a  man  grows 
older,  though  the  likelihood  of  his  death  becomes 
more  and  more  with  every  passing  year,  his 
clinging  to  bare  life,  however  painful  and  terrible 
that  life  may  be,  becomes  more  intense.  The 
young  hardly  seem  to  fear  death ;  that  is  a  fear 
almost  confined  to  the  aged.  How  otherwise 
can  we  explain  the  extraordinary  heroism  shown 
by  the  boys  of  every  army  during  the  late  war  ? 
I  watched  many  beautiful  and  gallant  boys, 
volunteers  mark  you,  march  down  the  streets  of 
Sydney  on  their  way  to  a  quarrel  which  nobody 
understood — not  even  the  German  Kaiser  who 

237 


POST    MORTEM 

started  it ;  and  when  my  own  turn  came  to  go 
I  patched  up  many  thousands  who  had  been 
shattered  :  the  one  impression  made  upon  me 
was  the  utter  vileness  and  beastliness  of  war, 
and  the  glorious  courage  of  the  boys  in  the  line. 
Before  the  order  went  forth  forbidding  the  use 
of  Listen's  long  splint  in  the  advanced  dressing 
stations,  men  with  shattered  lower  limbs  used 
to  be  brought  in  with  their  feet  turned  back 
to  front.  High-explosive  shells  would  tear  away 
half  the  front  of  a  man's  abdomen ;  men  would 
be  maimed  horribly  for  life,  and  life  would  never 
be  the  same  again  for  them.  Yet  none  seemed  to 
complain.  I  know  that  our  own  boys  simply 
accepted  it  all  as  the  inevitable  consequence 
of  war,  and  from  what  I  saw  of  the  English  and 
French  their  attitude  of  mind  was  much  the  same. 
The  courage  of  the  boys  was  amazing.  I  am 
very  sure  that  if  the  average  age  of  the  armies 
had  been  sixty  instead  of  under  thirty,  Amiens 
would  never  have  been  saved  or  Fort  Douaumont 
recovered,  nor  would  the  Germans  have  fought 
so  heroically  as  we  must  admit  they  did.  Old  men 
feel  death  approaching  them,  and  they  fear  it. 
We  all  know  that  our  old  patients  are  far  more 
nervous  about  death  than  the  young.  I  re- 
member a  girl  who  had  sarcoma  of  the  thigh, 
which  recurred  after  amputation,  and  I  had  to 

238 


DEATH 

send  her  to  a  home  for  the  dying.  She  did  not 
seem  very  much  perturbed.  I  suppose  the 
proper  thing  to  say  would  be  that  she  was  con- 
scious of  her  salvation  and  had  nothing  to  fear ; 
but  the  truth  was  that  she  was  a  young  rake 
who  had  committed  nearly  every  crime  possible 
to  the  female  sex,  and  she  died  as  peacefully 
and  happily  as  any  young  member  of  the  Church 
I  ever  knew.  But  who  is  so  terrified  as  the  old 
woman  who  trips  on  a  rough  edge  of  the  carpet 
and  fractures  her  thigh-bone  ?  How  she  clings 
to  life  !  What  terrors  attend  her  last  few  weeks 
on  earth,  till  merciful  pneumonia  comes  to  send 
her  to  endless  sleep  ! 

I  do  not  remember  to  have  noticed  any  of  that 
ecstasy  which  we  are  told  should  attend  the 
dying  of  the  saved.  Generally,  so  far  as  I  have 
observed,  the  dying  man  falls  asleep  some  hours 
or  days  before  he  actually  dies,  and  does  not 
wake  again.  His  breathing  becomes  more  and 
more  feeble  ;  his  heart  beats  more  irregularly  and 
feebly,  and  finally  it  does  not  resume ;  there 
comes  a  moment  when  his  face  alters  indes- 
cribably and  his  jaw  drops ;  one  touches  his 
eyes  and  they  do  not  respond ;  one  holds  a  mirror 
to  his  mouth  and  it  is  not  dulled ;  his  wife, 
kneeling  by  the  bedside,  suddenly  perceives  that 
she  is  a  widow,  and  cries  inconsolably  ;  one  turns 

239 


POST    MORTEM 

away  sore  and  grieved  and  defeated ;  and  that 
is  all  about  it !  There  is  no  more  heroism  nor 
pain  nor  agony  in  dying  than  in  falling  asleep 
every  night.  Whether  a  man  has  been  a  good 
man  or  a  bad  does  not  seem  to  make  any  differ- 
ence. I  have  seldom  seen  a  death-agony,  nor 
heard  a  death-rattle  that  could  be  distinguished 
from  a  commonplace  snore.  Possibly  the  muscles 
may  become  wanting  in  oxygenation  for  some 
time  before  actual  death,  and  thrown  into  con- 
vulsive movements  like  the  dance  of  the  high- 
wayman at  Tyburn  while  he  was  dying  of 
strangulation,  and  these  convulsive  movements 
might  be  looked  upon  as  a  death-agony ;  but  I 
am  quite  sure  that  the  patient  never  feels  them. 
To  do  so  would  require  that  the  sense  of  self- 
location  would  persist,  but  what  evidence  we 
have  is  that  that  is  one  of  the  first  senses  to 
depart.  Possibly  the  dying  man  may  have  some 
sensation  such  as  we  have  all  gone  through 
while  falling  asleep — that  feeling  as  though  we 
are  falling,  which  is  supposed  to  be  a  survival 
from  the  days  when  we  were  apes ;  possibly 
there  may  be  some  giddiness  such  as  attends 
the  going  under  an  anaesthetic,  and  is  doubtless 
to  be  attributed  to  the  same  loss  of  power  of 
self -location ;  but  the  impression  that  has  been 
forced  upon  me  whenever  I  have  seen  any 

240 


DEATH 

struggling  has  been  that  the  movements  were 
quite  involuntary,  purposeless,  and  meaningless. 
And  anything  like  an  agony  or  a  death-rattle 
is  rare.  Far  more  often  the  man  simply  falls 
asleep,  and  it  may  be  as  difficult  to  decide  when 
life  passes  into  death  as  it  is  to  decide  when 
consciousness  passes  into  sleep. 

Nor  have  I  ever  heard  any  genuine  last  words 
such  as  we  read  in  books.  I  doubt  if  they  ever 
occur.  At  the  actual  time  of  death  the  man's 
body  is  far  too  busy  with  its  dying  for  his  mind 
to  formulate  any  ideas.  The  nearest  approach 
to  a  "  last  word  "  that  I  ever  remember  was  when 
a  very  old  and  brilliant  man,  who,  after  a  life- 
time spent  in  the  service  of  Australia,  lay  dying, 
full  of  years  and  honour,  from  suppression  of 
urine  that  followed  some  weeks  after  an  operation 
on  his  prostate.  It  was  early  in  the  war,  and 
Austria,  with  her  usual  folly,  was  acting  egre- 
giously.  The  nurse  was  trying  to  rouse  the  old 
man  by  reading  to  him  the  war  news.  He  sud- 
denly sat  up,  and  a  flash  of  intelligence  came  over 
his  face.  "  Pah — Austria  with  her  idiot  Arch- 
dukes— that  was  what  Bismarck  said,  wasn't  it  ?  " 
Then  he  fell  back,  and  went  to  sleep  ;  nor  could 
the  visits  of  his  family  and  the  injections  of  saline 
solution  into  his  veins  rouse  him  again  from  his 
torpor.  He  lay  unconscious  for  nearly  a  week. 

241  Q 


POST    MORTEM 

That  is  the  only  instance  of  the  "  ruling  passion 
strong  in  death "  that  I  remember.  He  had 
always  hated  Bismarck  and  despised  the  Austrians, 
and  for  one  brief  moment  hatred  and  contempt 
awakened  his  clouded  brain.  And  Napoleon 
said,  "  lete  tfarmee" 

There  is  no  need,  so  far  as  we  can  tell,  to  fear 
the  actual  dying.  Death  is  no  more  to  be  feared 
than  his  twin-brother  Sleep,  as  the  very  ancient 
Greeks  of  Homer  surmised ;  it  is  what  comes  after 
that  many  people  fear.  "  To  sleep — perchance 
to  dream "  nightmares  ?  Well,  I  do  not  know 
what  other  people  feel  when  they  dream,  but  for 
myself  I  am  fortunate  enough  to  know,  even  in 
the  midst  of  the  most  horrible  nightmare,  that 
it  is  all  a  dream ;  and  I  dare  say  that  this  is  a 
privilege  common  to  many  people.  The  blessed 
sleep  that  comes  to  tired  man  in  the  early  morning, 
with  which  cometh  joy,  is  well  worth  going  through 
nightmare  to  attain  ;  and  I  think  I  am  not  speak- 
ing wildly  in  claiming  that  most  men  pass  the 
happiest  portions  of  their  lives  in  that  early 
morning  sleep.  One  of  the  horrors  of  neuras- 
thenia is  that  early  morning  sleep  is  often  denied 
to  the  patient. 

But  the  idea  of  hell  is  to  many  persons  a  real 
terror,  not  to  be  overmastered  by  reason.  God 
has  not  made  man  in  His  own  image ;  man  has 

242 


DEATH 

made  God  in  his.  As  Grant  Allen  used  to  say  : 
"  The  Englishman's  idea  of  God  is  an  English- 
man twelve  feet  high  "  ;  and  the  old  Jews,  who 
were  a  very  savage  and  ruthless  people,  created 
Jehovah  in  their  own  image.  To  such  a  God 
eternal  punishment  for  a  point  of  belief  was  quite 
the  natural  thing,  and  nineteen  centuries  of 
belief  in  the  teaching  of  a  loving  and  forgiving 
Christ  have  not  abolished  that  frightful  idea. 
It  is  one  of  the  disservices  of  the  Mediaeval  Church 
to  mankind  that  it  popularized  and  enforced  the 
idea  of  hell,  and  that  idea  has  been  diligently 
perpetuated  by  some  narrow-minded  sects  to 
this  very  day.  But  to  a  modern  man,  who,  with 
all  his  faults,  is  a  kindly  and  forgiving  creature, 
hell  is  unthinkable,  and  he  cannot  bring  himself 
to  believe  that  it  was  actually  part  of  the  teaching 
of  Christ.  If  the  New  Testament  says  so,  then, 
thinks  the  average  modern  man,  it  must  be  in  an 
interpolation  by  some  mediaeval  ecclesiastic  whose 
zeal  outran  his  mercy ;  and  an  average  modern 
man  is  not  seriously  swayed  by  any  idea  of  ever- 
lasting flames.  He  may  even  quaintly  wonder, 
if  he  has  studied  the  known  facts  of  the  universe, 
where  either  hell  or  heaven  is  to  be  found, 
considering  that  they  are  supposed  to  have  lasted 
for  ever  and  to  be  fated  to  last  as  long.  In  time 
to  come  the  souls,  saved  and  lost,  must  be  of 

243 


POST    MORTEM 

infinite  number,  if  they  are  not  so  already ;  and 
an  infinite  number  would  fill  all  available  space 
and  spill  over  for  an  infinite  distance,  leaving  no 
room  for  flames,  or  brimstone,  or  harps,  or  golden 
cities.  Perhaps  it  may  not  be  beyond  Almighty 
Power  to  solve  this  difficulty,  but  it  is  a  very 
real  one  to  the  average  thoughtful  man.  When 
we  begin  to  realize  infinity,  to  realize  that  every 
one  of  the  millions  of  known  suns  must  each  last 
for  millions  of  years,  after  which  the  whole 
process  must  begin  again,  endure  as  long,  and  so 
on  ad  infinitum,  the  thing  becomes  simply  incon- 
ceivable ;  the  mind  staggers,  and  takes  refuge 
in  agnosticism,  which  is  not  cured  by  the  scoffing 
of  clergymen  whom  one  suspects  of  not  viewing 
things  from  a  modern  standpoint.  Jowett  once 
answered  a  young  man  whom  he  evidently  looked 
upon  as  a  "  puppy "  by  thundering  at  him : 
"  Young  man,  you  call  yourself  an  agnostic ;  let 
me  tell  you  that  agnostic  is  a  Greek  word  the 
Latin  of  which  is  ignoramus  !  "  Jowett  evidently 
did  not  in  the  least  understand  that  young  man's 
difficulties,  nor  the  difficulties  of  any  man  whose 
training  has  been  scientific — that  is,  directed 
towards  the  ascertaining  what  is  demonstrably 
true.  Scoffing  and  insolence  like  that  only  react 
upon  the  scoffer's  head,  and  rather  breed  contempt 
than  comfort.  Nor  is  the  problem  of  God  Him- 

244 


DEATH 

self  any  more  easy  of  solution,  unless  we  are  pre- 
pared to  see  Him  everywhere,  in  every  minute  cell 
and  tiny  bacterium.  If  we  confess  to  such  a 
belief  we  are  immediately  crushed  with  the  cry 
of  "  mere  Pantheism,"  or  even  "  Spinozism,"  as 
though  these  epithets,  meant  to  be  contemptuous, 
led  us  any  further  on  our  way.  You  cannot 
solve  these  dreadful  problems  by  a  sneer,  and 
Voltaire,  the  prince  of  scoffers,  would  have  had 
even  more  influence  on  thought  than  he  had  if 
he  had  contented  himself  with  a  less  aggressive 
and  polemic  attitude  towards  the  Church. 

Hell  is  a  concrete  attempt  at  Divine  punish- 
ment. Punishment  for  what  ?  For  disobeying 
the  commandments  of  God  ?  How  are  we  to 
know  what  God  really  commanded  ?  And  how  are 
we  to  weigh  the  relative  effects  of  temptation  and 
powers  of  resistance  upon  any  given  man  ?  How  are 
we  to  say  that  an  action  which  in  one  man  may  be 
desperately  wicked  may  not  be  positively  virtuous 
in  another  ?  It  is  a  commonplace  that  virtue 
changes  with  latitude,  and  that  we  find  "  the 
crimes  of  Clapham  chaste  in  Martaban."  Why 
should  we  condemn  some  poor  maiden  of  Clapham 
to  burn  for  ever  for  a  crime  which  she  may  not 
recognize  as  a  crime,  whereas  we  applaud  a  damsel 
of  Martaban  for  doing  precisely  the  same  thing  ? 
And  what  is  sin  ?  Is  there  any  real  evidence  as 

245 


POST    MORTEM 

to  what  the  commandments  of  God  really  are  ? 
Modern  psychology  seems  to  hold  that  virtue  and 
vice  are  simply  phases  of  the  herd-complex  of 
normal  man,  and  have  been  evolved  by  the  herd 
during  countless  generations  as  the  best  method 
of  perpetuating  the  human  species.  No  indi- 
vidual man  made  his  own  herd-complex,  by  which 
he  is  so  enormously  swayed ;  no  individual  man 
made  his  own  sex-complex,  or  his  ego-complex, 
or  anything  that  is  his.  How  can  he  be  held 
responsible  for  his  actions  by  a  God  Who  made 
him  the  subject  of  such  frightful  temptations  and 
gave  him  such  feeble  powers  of  resistance  ? 
Edward  Fitzgerald — who,  be  it  remembered, 
knew  no  more  about  these  things  than  you  or  I — 
summed  up  the  whole  matter  in  "  Man's  forgive- 
ness give — and  take,"  and  probably  this  simple 
line  has  given  more  comfort  to  thoughtful  men 
than  all  Jowett's  bluster.  Fitzgerald  has  at  least 
voiced  the  instinctive  rebellion  which  every  man 
must  feel  when  he  considers  the  facts  of  human 
nature,  even  if  he  has  given  us  otherwise  no  more 
guidance  than  a  call  to  a  poor  kind  of  Epicureanism 
which  lays  stress  on  a  book  of  verse  underneath  a 
bough,  and  thou  beside  me  singing  in  a  wilderness. 
If  our  musings  lead  us  to  Epicureanism,  at  least 
let  it  be  the  Epicureanism  of  Epicurus,  and  not 
the  sensual  pleasure-seeking  of  Omar.  True, 

246 


DEATH 

Epicureanism  laid  stress  on  the  superiority  of 
mental  over  physical  happiness ;  it  were  better  to 
worship  at  the  shrine  of  Beethoven  than  of  Venus, 
and  better  to  take  your  pleasure  in  the  library 
than  in  the  wine-shop.  But  nobler  than  Epicurus 
was  Zeno,  the  Stoic,  whose  influence  on  both  the 
ancient  and  the  modern  worlds  has  been  so  pro- 
found. If  we  are  to  take  philosophy  as  our  guide, 
Stoicism,  which  inculcates  duty  and  self-restraint, 
and  is  supported  by  the  great  names  of  Seneca, 
Epictetus,  and  Marcus  Aurelius,  is  probably  our 
best  leading  light.  Theoretically  it  should  pro- 
duce noble  characters ;  practically  it  has  produced 
the  noblest,  if  the  Meditations  of  Marcus  Aurelius 
were  really  written  by  him  and  not  by  some  monk 
in  the  Middle  Ages.  If  we  follow  the  teaching 
of  Stoicism  we  shall,  when  we  come  to  die,  at 
least  have  the  consolation  that  we  have  done  our 
duty ;  and  if  we  realize  the  full  meaning  of 
"  duty  "  in  the  modern  world  to  include  duty 
done  kindly  and  generously  as  well  as  faithfully, 
we  shall  be  living  as  nearly  to  the  ideals  laid  down 
by  Christ  as  is  possible  to  human  nature,  and  we 
shall  assuredly  have  nothing  to  fear. 

Anaesthesia  gives  some  faint  hint  as  to  the 
possibility  of  a  future  life.  It  is  believed  that 
chloroform  and  ether  abolish  consciousness  by 
causing  a  slight  change  in  the  molecular  con- 

247 


POST    MORTEM 

stitution  of  nervous  matter,  as  for  instance  dis- 
solving the  fatty  substances  or  lipoids.  If  so 
minute  a  change  in  the  chemistry  of  nervous 
matter  has  the  power  of  totally  abolishing  con- 
sciousness, how  can  the  mind  possibly  survive 
the  much  greater  change  which  occurs  in  nervous 
matter  after  corruption  has  set  in  ?  Nor  has  there 
ever  been  any  proof  that  there  can  be  conscious- 
ness without  living  nervous  matter.  One  turns 
to  the  spiritualistic  evidence  offered  by  Myers, 
Conan  Doyle,  Oliver  Lodge,  and  other  observers, 
but  after  carefully  studying  their  reports  one 
feels  inclined  to  agree  with  Huxley  that  spiritual- 
ism has  merely  added  a  new  terror  to  death,  for, 
according  to  the  spiritualists,  death  appears  to 
transform  men  into  idiots  who  on  earth  were 
known  to  be  able  and  clever,  and  the  marvel  is 
not  the  miracles  which  they  report,  but  that 
clever  men  should  be  found  to  believe  them. 

An  even  more  remarkable  marvel  than  the 
marvel  of  Lodge  and  Conan  Doyle  was  the 
marvel  of  John  Henry  Newman,  who,  a  supremely 
able  man,  living  at  the  time  of  Darwin,  Huxley, 
and  the  vast  biological  advancement  of  the 
Victorian  era,  was  yet  able  in  middle  life  to  em- 
brace the  far  from  rationalistic  doctrines  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church.  That  he  was  tempted 
to  do  so  by  the  opportunity  which  his  action  gave 

248 


DEATH 

him  of  becoming  a  prince  of  the  Church  is  too 
ridiculous  an  assumption  to  stand  for  a  moment. 
The  man  believed  these  things,  and  believed  them 
with  greatness,  nobility,  and  earnestness ;  when 
he  'verted  he  was  forty-four  years  of  age,  and  it 
was  not  for  about  thirty  years  that  he  was  created 
a  cardinal.  The  only  explanation  that  can  be 
given  is  that  we  have  not  yet  fathomed  the  depths 
of  the  human  mind ;  there  is  a  certain  type  of 
mind  which  appears  to  see  things  by  what  it  calls 
intuition  and  is  not  open  to  reason  on  the  basis 
of  evidence  or  probability. 

Probably  what  most  men  fear  is  not  death  but 
the  pain  and  illness  which  generally  precede  death  ; 
and  apart  from  that  very  natural  dread  there  is 
the  dread  of  leaving  things  which  are  dear  to 
every  one.  After  all,  life  is  sweet  to  most  of  us ; 
it  is  pleasant  to  feel  the  warm  sun  and  see  the  blue 
sky  and  watch  the  shadows  race  over  far  hills ; 
an  occasional  concert,  a  week-end  spent  at  golf,  or 
at  working  diligently  in  the  garden;  congenial 
employment,  or  a  worthy  book  to  read,  all  help 
to  make  life  worth  living,  and  the  mind  becomes 
sad  at  the  thought  of  leaving  these  things  and  the 
home  which  they  epitomize.  I  remember  once 
in  a  troopship,  a  few  days  out  from  an  Australian 
port,  when  the  men  had  all  got  over  their  sea- 
sickness and  were  beginning  to  realize  that  they 

249 


POST    MORTEM 

really  were  started  on  their  Great  Adventure, 
that  I  went  down  into  their  quarters  at  night, 
and  found  a  big  young  countryman  who  had 
enlisted  in  the  Artillery,  sobbing  bitterly.  It  was 
a  long  time  before  kindly  consolation  and  a  dose 
of  bromide  sent  him  off  to  sleep.  In  the  morning 
he  came  to  see  me  and  tried  to  apologize  for  his 
unmanliness.  "  I'm  not  afraid  of  dyin',  sir,"  he 
explained.  "  I  want  to  stoush  some  of  them 
Germans  first,  though.  It's  leaving  all  me  life 
in  Australia  if  I  'appen  to  stop  a  lump  of  lead,  sir 
— that's  what's  worryin'  me."  Life  in  Australia 
meant  riding  on  horseback  when  he  was  not 
following  at  the  plough's  tail.  It  was  the  only 
life  he  knew,  and  he  loved  it.  But  I  was  fully 
convinced  that  he  no  more  feared  actual  death 
than  he  feared  a  mosquito,  and  when  he  left  the 
ship  at  Suez,  and  joined  lustily  in  the  singing 
of  "  Australia  will  be  there  " — who  so  jovial  as 
he  ?  He  got  through  the  fighting  on  Gallipoli, 
only  to  be  destroyed  on  the  Somme ;  his  horse, 
if  it  had  not  already  been  sent  to  Palestine,  had 
to  submit  to  another  rider ;  his  acres  to  produce 
for  another  ploughman. 

The  last  illness  is,  of  course,  sometimes  very 
unpleasant,  especially  if  cancer  or  angina  pectoris 
enter  into  the  picture,  but  I  have  often  marvelled 
at  the  endurance  of  men  who  should,  according 

250 


DEATH 

to  all  one's  preconceived  ideas,  be  broken  up  with 
distress.  Not  uncommonly  a  man  refuses  to 
believe  that  he  is  really  so  seriously  ill  as  other 
people  think,  and  there  is  always  the  hope  eternal 
in  every  breast  that  he  will  get  better.  Quite 
commonly  he  looks  hopefully  in  the  glass  every 
morning  as  he  shaves  for  signs  of  coming  improve- 
ment ;  there  are  few  men  who  really  believe  that 
sentence  of  early  death  has  been  passed  upon 
them. 

The  illness  which  causes  the  most  misery  is  an 
illness  complicated  with  neurasthenia,  and  prob- 
ably the  neurasthenic  tastes  the  bitterest  misery 
of  which  mankind  is  capable,  unless  we  admit 
melancholia  into  the  grisly  competition.  But  I 
often  think  that  the  long  sleepless  early  morning 
hours  of  neurasthenia,  when  the  patient  lies 
listening  for  the  chimes,  worrying  over  his  physi- 
cal condition  and  harassed  with  dread  of  the 
future,  are  the  most  terrible  possible  to  man. 
Nor  are  they  in  any  way  improved  by  the  know- 
ledge that  sometimes  neurasthenia  does  not 
indicate  any  real  physical  disease. 

But  it  is  difficult  to  find  any  really  rational 
cause  for  the  desire  to  live  longer,  unless  Sir 
Thomas  Browne  is  right  in  thinking  that  the 
long  habit  of  living  indisposeth  us  for  dying. 
After  all,  what  does  it  really  matter  whether  we 

251 


POST    MORTEM 

die  to-morrow  or  live  twenty  more  years  ?  In 
another  century  it  will  be  all  the  same ;  at  most 
we  but  postpone  dissolution.  Death  has  to  come 
sooner  or  later ;  and  whatever  we  believe  of  our 
life  beyond  the  grave  is  not  likely  to  make  any 
difference.  We  were  not  consulted  as  to  whether 
we  were  to  be  born,  nor  as  to  the  parts  and  capa- 
bilities which  were  to  be  allotted  to  us,  and  it 
is  exceedingly  unlikely  that  our  wishes  will  be 
taken  into  consideration  as  regards  our  eternal 
disposition.  We  can  do  no  more  when  we  come 
to  die  than  take  our  involuntary  leap  into  the 
dark  like  innumerable  living  creatures  before 
us,  and,  conscious  of  having  done  our  duty 
to  the  best  that  lay  in  us,  hope  for  the 
best. 

Twentieth-century  biological  science  appears 
to  result  in  a  kind  of  vague  pantheism,  coupled 
with  a  generous  hedonism.  Scientific  men  appear 
to  find  their  pleasure,  not  like  the  old  Greeks, 
sought  by  each  man  for  himself,  but  rather  in 
"  the  greatest  happiness  of  the  greatest  number." 
It  is  difficult  for  a  modern  man  to  feel  entirely 
happy  while  he  knows  of  the  vast  amount  of 
incurable  misery  that  exists  in  the  world.  The 
idea  of  Heaven  is  simply  an  idea  that  the  atrocious 
injustice  and  unhappiness  of  life  in  this  world 
must  be  balanced  by  equally  great  happiness  in 

252 


DEATH 

the  life  to  come ;  but  is  there  any  evidence  to 
favour  such  a  belief  ?  Is  there  any  evidence 
throughout  Nature  that  the  spirit  of  justice  is 
anything  but  a  dream  of  man  himself  which  is 
never  to  be  fulfilled  ?  We  do  not  like  to  speak  of 
"  death,"  but  prefer  rather  to  avoid  the  hated 
term  by  some  journalistic  periphrasis,  such  as 
"solved  the  great  enigma."  But  is  there  any 
enigma  ?  Or  are  we  going  to  solve  it  ?  Is  it  not 
more  likely  that  our  protoplasm  is  destined  to 
become  dissolved  into  its  primordial  electrons, 
and  ultimately  to  be  lost  in  the  general  ocean  of 
ether,  and  that  when  we  die  we  shall  solve 
no  enigma,  because  there  is  no  enigma  to 
solve  ? 

To  sum  up,  death  probably  does  not  hurt 
nearly  so  much  as  the  ordinary  sufferings  which 
are  the  lot  of  everybody  in  living ;  the  act  of 
death  is  probably  no  more  terrible  than  our 
nightly  falling  asleep ;  and  probably  the  con- 
dition of  everlasting  rest  is  what  Fate  has  in  store . 
for  us,  and  we  can  face  it  bravely  without  flinching 
when  our  time  comes.  But  whether  we  flinch  or 
not  will  not  matter  ;  we  have  to  die  all  the  same, 
and  we  shall  be  less  likely  to  flinch  if  we  can  feel 
that  we  have  tried  to  do  our  duty.  And  what 
are  we  to  say  of  a  man  who  has  seen  his  duty,  and 
urgently  longed  to  perform  it,  but  has  failed 

253 


POST    MORTEM 

because  God  has  not  given  him  sufficient  strength  ? 
"Video  meliora  proboque,  deteriora  sequor/' 
as  old  Cicero  said  of  himself.  If  there  is  any 
enigma  at  all,  it  lies  in  the  frustrated  longings  and 
bitter  disappointment  of  that  man. 

Probably  the  best  shield  throughout  life  against 
the  atrocious  evils  and  injustices  which  every  man 
has  to  suffer  is  a  kind  of  humorous  fatalism  which 
holds  that  other  people  have  suffered  as  much  as 
ourselves ;  that  such  suffering  is  a  necessary  con- 
comitant of  life  upon  this  world  ;  and  that  nothing 
much  matters  so  long  as  we  do  our  duty  in  the 
sphere  to  which  Fate  has  called  us.  A  kindly 
irony  which  enables  us  to  laugh  at  the  world  and 
sympathize  with  its  troubles  is  a  very  powerful 
aid  in  the  battle ;  and  if  a  doctor  does  his  part  in 
alleviating  pain  and  postponing  death — if  he  does 
his  best  for  rich  and  poor,  and  always  listens  to  the 
cry  of  the  afflicted, — and  if  he  endeavours  to 
leave  his  wife  and  children  in  a  position  better 
than  he  himself  began,  I  do  not  see  what  more 
can  be  expected  of  him  either  in  this  world  or  the 
next.  And  probably  Huxley  was  not  far  wrong 
when  he  said  :  "  I  have  no  faith,  very  little  hope, 
and  as  much  charity  as  I  can  afford."  It  is 
amazing  that  there  are  some  people  in  the  world 
to-day  who  look  upon  a  man  who  professes  these 
merciful  sentiments  as  a  miscreant  doomed  to 

254 


DEATH 

eternal  flames  because  he  will  not  profess  to 
believe  in  their  own  particular  form  of  religion. 
They  think  they  have  answered  him  when  they 
proclaim  that  his  creed  is  sterile. 


